Career Week
by t3h maniac
Summary: All Third Year students in Shujin Academy have to spend a week getting work experience to help prepare them for life ahead, and now in his senior year Ryuji's one of them. Although there's very little that could prepare anyone for having to deal with the craziest boss in Japan. Crazy in a good way. Hopefully.
1. Chapter 1 - More Attention Needed

It was Ryuji's final year at Shujin Academy and things were going... well it was school so things were never great, but they were better than usual. His grades across the board had gone from "dirt worst" to "possibly passable" and he'd even found something that he could excel: his training both before and after Kamoshida broke his leg had given him a decent knowledge of physical fitness and health, so when those subjects were added into the tests his results skyrocketed. Not to the top of the class but enough to smug it up to whoever was calling him an idiot. The Phantom Thieves might not be righting wrongs or stopping bad guys like they used to but things were going okay.

Until two words sent him crashing down.

"Careers week!?" He yelled, pounding his fist on a Leblanc table, an open letter bouncing with the impact "What the hell?"

"It was mentioned a month ago Ryuji," Ann explained, holding up her own copy of the letter "We got to find places to do 'Work Experience' for a week or two. You either found a place on your own or school decides it for you," the blonde continued, adding sarcastic air quotes around the key words "Haru and Makoto did it last year, we have to do it this year."

"No-one ever told me about it!" He said defensively.

"Uhh, pretty sure they did. Which is why Kawakami's gonna send you somewhere."

"Aww man..." the delinquent groaned, resting his chin on his folded arms "So what do you have to do?" He asked.

"Well I've got mine at the modelling studios." Ann answered as Sojiro placed two cups of hot chocolate at their table.

"Thanks Boss," Ryuji said glumly, blowing a little gap through the cream "Wait, at the modelling studio?" He asked pointedly.

"Yeah..?" Asked Ann with a slight nervous twinge in her voice, watching the gears in Ryuji's head starting to add 2 and 2.

"Don't you already do modelling?"

Ann inhaled sharply, wishing the hot chocolate was cool enough to drink already for a distraction "Well yes, but..."

"So you get to do stuff you were already gonna do for a week while I have to go to who knows where and do who knows what!?" Ryuji snapped.

"Well you should have found somewhere earlier!" Ann snapped back, folding her own arms "Not my fault you switch off between lessons ending and hitting the gym."

"Arg..." The dyed blond growled, turning attention to Sojiro "Hey, Boss! Can I do this crap with you? You can skip paying me for it."

"We're not getting paid for this." Ann pointed out.

"WE'RE NOT!? Dude, this is slavery! We have to do 'adult' shit but not get paid for them."

"Sorry Sakamoto, but you're a little late on asking me. Says on that letter you had till last week to ask so they could check that the place you were working's legit. Couldn't help ya even if I tried." Sojiro answered, tactfully ignoring the outburst. Thankfully there weren't any other customers to scare away.

"C'mon Ryuji," Ann said, taking the time to lick away the whipped cream on her drink "It's only for a week and there's no homework or study materials."

"Yeah, yeah," Ryuji conceded "Still, sucks for you more I guess. You were already doing modelling work, so now you just won't get paid for it for a week."

"Oh. I'm still getting paid."

"WHAT?!"

* * *

Ryuji was dreading what he'd be getting for career's week and even Ms Kawakami picked up on the dark cloud hanging over him, trying to ease him into potential ideas even if she had to default to the less than helpful "What would you like to do?" when several suggestions of office work flopped.

"Well," the blond began, "I guess I could... maybe..." he stalled, blatantly.

"I'm all ears Ryuji." The teacher reassured

"...possibly do a week with a wrestling fed?" He suggested with a guilty smile "They could probably do with the extra hands for a show. Building the ring and all."

The brunette's expression dropped from a helpful smile to a disappointed frown. Not angry, just disappointed "I don't think that's a good career option. This is supposed to be about potential long term plans."

"Aww man." Ryuji groaned, shoulders dropping as his hopes of getting a week of front row seats were dashed.

"But, if it's something physically focused you're interested in I think we have something here for you," She added, reaching through a set of files. "Ah, how about a construction firm?" the teacher added, forcing a smile.

"I gotta pick something, right?" He asked, getting a confirmatory nod in return "Then... sure," he groaned, muttering "they better not be assholes." under his breath.

"Then it's settled, I'll phone ahead and make sure they'll have equipment ready for you! Take this form with you when you go," she declared, letting Ryuji sulk off with the form while she reached for the staff phone "Hello? It's Ms. Kawakami. Am I speaking to the man in charge? I called earlier about potential experience placements... no I'm not going to call him that and he knows it..."

* * *

With a send of from his mother, Ryuji was left to take the trip to the outskirts of Tokyo to slave away working for a guy he didn't know for no pay. There wasn't even a metro station near the site he was supposed to go to, leaving him to take the bus early in the morning instead. Tiredness edging into his vision as he was jostled along bumpy roads, he shuffled unenthusiastically to the temporary office on the edge of a construction site, being early enough to not immediately be greeted by a worker with a foul attitude telling him to scram before he could even explain. Heck, maybe that wouldn't be the worst. Get told to get lost before he could even start working, go do stuff that was actually worth his time, and then if the school asked he could turn and blame them. Sweet!

But no such luck was available, Ryuji was left to walk up to the office and look for someone who might possibly be in charge. "Okay," he began, reading the dirty plaque on the cabin door "Boss, Head Foreman, Guy In Charge and Company President. Is it one guy or is it all of them?" He wondered out loud before moving on to the actual name beneath the overly long title "Goro-Chan?!" He yelled out loud, jumping back in shock. It couldn't be the same Goro, there had to be more than one person in Japan named that, but seeing the name after a year still caused a bunch of unpleasant memories.

"Did someone call my name?" Came the high-pitched Kansai-accented response as the door kicked open. Ryuji wasn't sure what he was expecting from a construction boss, but this was not it. Not by a long shot.

The man who booted the door was old, at least in his forties, but dressed as though he was forever young in the 1980s. A Snakeskin Jacket was worn over a bare chest, leather pants and matching boots, probably not up to workplace safety standards, but his face was the strangest of all. A bright yellow helmet squashed hair that pressed out to the side, one of his eyes was covered by a black leather patch, adorned with a patch design. "What the hell did I get into?" He mumbled to himself, panicking under the one-eyed glare of this evil-looking man.

"Oh! You're that kid that Kawakami-han said was coming for a week. Well, welcome aboard this crazy train!" His scowl had changed into a grin but was no less intimidating for it.

"Uh... yeah. I'm Ryuji Sakamoto. Nice to meet you?" Ryuji answered, trying to look at a spot on the wall about five inches up and to the left of where his temporary boss actually was.

"Well Ryuji-chan, let's get you started!" The man declared, suddenly slipping past the stunned blond and pushing him into the office "Your first day with Majima Construction!"

* * *

**A/N: This was not the first idea I've had for a Yakuza/Persona crossover. Although trying to slot together the timelines of both make it tricky, my initial plan was to have Majima try to rope the Phantom Thieves (and only getting Ryuji) into luring Kiryu into a fight between the Dragon and the Mad Dog. Oh well, maybe another time**


	2. Chapter 2 - First Day on the Job

Ryuji groaned into his folded arms in despair, even being surrounded by friends in Leblanc was failing to lift his mood, "Told you it was bad..." Ann muttered from across the table while Haru ran her fingers through the blond's spiky hair "Were you two like this for career week?"

"It wasn't this bad," Makoto answered, looking at the downtrodden looking delinquent "I had to do assistant work in my sister's office, it was a long day though so I often came home exhausted. Almost missed an Aikido session for it."

"See Ryuji, even Makoto struggled!" Ann said, trying to provoke a response "What about you Haru?" She asked when no response came.

"Um..." Haru mumbled, removing her hand from Ryuji's hair as she braced for the inevitable blowback "I... well my father offered me a temporary position for the week which had me doing nothing, so I used the time to really focus on the vegetable garden."

"AAAAAAUUUUUGGGHHHH!" Was the very loud groan that made up Ryuji's reaction, lifting up his head to let everyone hear his displeasure.

"Geez Ryuji, I could have heard that out here without a phone, Morgana did. What the heck happened?" Came the crackled voice of Ren, live from his parent's house via speaker phone.

"Is the name freaking cursed?!" Ryuji ranted, pushing himself away from the table to lean back on his chair "Is it like some pact your parents put you through? That every single one I meet is fighting for the title of world's biggest asshole?"

"What name?" Was the unanimous question.

"What else? Freaking Goro man! My boss' name is Goro and he's about seven tenths the prick that Akechi was. And he was an eff'n prick!" Ryuji eventually explained, slumping back down into his arms while the rest of the Phantom Thieves waited for further explanations. "Okay, it starts off pretty weird. The guy looks like a psychopath already..."

* * *

Having been pushed into the cramped office by a creepy dude with an eyepatch and a crazy smile, Ryuji's morning was going poorly. Not that his temporary boss seemed to give a damn about his lack of enthusiasm, instead opting to be enthusiastic enough for the both of them. "Okay! Let's get this started!" he declared in a pitch that was only slightly lower than a squeal. "I'm Goro Majima, I run this fun time so for now you can call me Majima-sama and maybe by the end of the week we'll be close enough for you to call me Majima-han instead. I know it says Goro-chan on the front door but you gotta earn the right to call me that and we're not together long enough for that to happen and the last person who did that without earning the right to do that is currently in intensive care for the past month." He rattled off quickly, rifling through various filing cabinets, looking for something frantically.

"Uh..." Ryuji gawped, not really knowing if the man was joking or not before a piece of paper was thrust into his hands. It looked like a song sheet, it _was _a song sheet.

"Most important thing first," Goro informed him, spinning the blond around and leading him back out to a bunch of actual construction workers. Heavyset old men with beady eyes, looking as though they were collectively one beer away from starting a brawl, locked into an expression of contempt as they looked at the young blond "Okay everyone!" He shouted through a megaphone from about five inches behind Ryuji "This is Sakamoto-chan, everyone! He's gonna be with us for a week or two so he can legally skip school so everyone make him feel welcome." The murmured "Hey" in response did not make Ryuji feel welcome.

"Uh... hi guys." Ryuji waved back awkwardly before Majima shoved him into the crowd.

"And the best way to do that is starting off with the Majima Construction Song!" The construction company chief yelled at the highest volume 500 yen megaphone technology would allow.

"Wait, what!?" Ryuji yelled as the eyepatch wearing madman reached back for an old cassette player and pressed play, the rest of the workers standing to attention even if they did look like they were approaching it with little more energy than Ryuji had while overly bombastic music started to play.

* * *

"WHAT!?" Yelled Ann, back in the present and trying not to bust a gut laughing "He actually made a freaking song for his company? And everyone has to sing it in the morning!?"

"I was lead to believe that there was some vetting process for this." Yusuke commented.

"So was I!" Ryuji yelled back "Guess they'll send kids too dumb to get their own way out of crap like this to anyone."

Ren had the distinct advantage in this situation only doing the group therapy via phone. He was the only one who could press the mute button while he pictured Ryuji trying to sing along and therefore was the only one who could laugh at his friend's misfortune without earning a dirty look, angry comment or punch to an area he would rather not get punched. "Okay," he began, having recovered from his giggle fit "So they made you do a song, that's not the worst thing in the world, right?"

"It's only just the start..." the blond groaned.

* * *

"Okay everybody? HERE WE GO!" Goro yelled as the men burst into song, leaving Ryuji fumbling through the papers handed to him to try and get a grip on the situation, settling for just moving his lips while the rest were singing.

_~At the western end of sleepless Kamuro's sky, even Mt. Fuji is disregarded as we build the future~_

"C'mon! Louder! Put your heart into it!" Majima yelled, walking around the workers, still using the megaphone for extra ear damage "You too Sakamoto-chan! No excuses! I wanna hear you!" He bellowed until the blond started to join in out of desperation more than anything "Smiles people! Remember to smile!"

_~A school for youth's way of life Creating smiles-Majima Construction~_

Safety gear sucked. It was official, the hard-hat was too small and the steel-capped boots were too big and heavy. Even the hi-vis jacket didn't fit right leaving Ryuji to stumble through the dangerous site feeling as though he was going to trip up every 50 seconds into wet cement.

_~Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima Construction~_

What was his co-workers seemed to have the view that they'd been given babysitting duty for however long Ryuji was stuck with them and had resolved to give as little of a damn about him as possible. The feeling of "You don't want to be here, we don't want you here" was palatable.

_~Stacked up high, nail by nail, are many smiles and blessed mothers~_

Even when he was actually doing work instead of standing around awkwardly watching Majima hit people over the head with a paper fan, less work got done as the rest of the workers stopped to make sure he hadn't manage to mess up the difficult art of wheeling a bunch of bricks from one pile over to another.

_~Day and night, we work up a sweat and march on Renovating tomorrow-Majima Construction~_

"Yo, where am I supposed to eat?" the blond asked to no reply as they headed off to various bars for a liquid lunch, leaving Ryuji with his home-packed lunch box to sit awkwardly on a lying girder, food on his lap as he ate alone "Assholes..."

_~Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima Construction~_

If there was one satisfaction from being alienated from the rest of the workers, it was that he didn't feel as bad when Majima got the jump on one of them from behind a pillar, or corner, or door, or anywhere really. It was like the guy had nothing better to do than jump out and surprise people even when they were balanced on a beam "How the hell does he get a company and not punched in the dick?" He wondered out loud.

_~What we create is unknown feelings that shake the earth's foundation~_

Finally Ryuji had got a break to himself, and a can of soda for it. He'd managed to scrape up change at the bottom of his bag to get enough for a 1UP and he was gonna enjoy the sugary taste. It had been a long day and he earned it, that and the massive burp after draining the can "Heh..." he chuckled to himself, wondering if any of the other Thieves had managed to hear that one before tossing it in the trash can, turning around straight into the furious face of Goro Majima.

_~That's our lifestyle Like a starving dog running through a winding path, Rise up in revolution-Majima Construction~_

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YA DOING?!" Majima barked as Ryuji stumbled back, tripping on his oversized boots and falling on his ass.

"Whoa-whoa!" Was all the blond could manage as he got his answer to his earlier question of how no-one had punched him in the dick, even on reflex. No matter how scary Goro Majima looked normally, it was nothing compared to what he looked like when he was angry "I'm on a break!"

"I KNOW YOU'RE ON A BREAK, DUMBASS!" Goro continued to yell "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING WITH THAT CAN?"

"I threw it in the trash?"

"ITS A CAN YOU IDIOT! IT GOES IN THE METAL RECYCLING NOT THE TRASH! Now fish it out and put it in the right hole!" the boss bellowed before storming off muttering something about "Kids these days..." while Ryuji was left to try and pull himself up. At least no-one was laughing at getting the hair dryer treatment

_~Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima Construction~ _

_~That's who we are! We're Goro Majima's Majima Construction!~_

* * *

"Majima Construction eff'n sucks!" Ryuji concluded as the phantom thieves nodded in sympathy "Can't one of you break my leg again and get me out of it?" He asked around as they all shook their heads "Man... if only we could go into mementos again, steal his heart and get him to stop being a shitty boss..." he groaned, five more days of hell remaining.


	3. Chapter 3 - Desperate Measures

**A/N: You ever get those moments when a small goofy plot you had got out of hand? It happened again**

* * *

The sun was rising over a Tuesday Tokyo as Ryuji made his way through crowds of commuters to get to Leblanc, fighting against the wave of human traffic to slip through the front door to the cafe, finding just the woman he was looking for. Futuba was part of his secret (at least among people he didn't hang out with) strategy to make the next couple of days more bearable by finding a way to remove the possibility of Goro Majima sneaking up on him and scaring the crap out of him. Construction work sucked enough when you weren't getting paid, weren't trusted to do anything actually worth doing beyond getting coffee and busywork without living in fear of the boss jumping out behind the corner. This time, if Majima tried anything to spook, threaten or make him jump: Futaba's equipment would make sure the one-eyed madman wouldn't get the chance. "Dude, I have no clue how you got 20 spy cams in like 6 hours but you are a freaking life saver." Ryuji cheered, stroking a cardboard box just small enough to fit into his backpack.

"You don't wanna know," Futuba purred back, spinning on the bar stool "So it's as idiot proof as it's gonna get, there's a bunch of earpieces you can fit under your headset in case you miss one and it all runs through your phone automatically," the playful hacker explained, eyes gleaming beneath her glasses "Just put em up and no more jump scares for Sakamoto-chan!"

Ryuji's eye twitched at Futaba's use of that name, especially with the redhead putting on a fake high-pitched kansai accent for it, but she was being way too helpful for him to call her out over it, not when she'd just shown how quickly she could get a spy network set up "Thanks Futaba, you know you didn't have to do all this."

"Eh, more interesting on schoolwork." Futaba dismissed.

"Speaking of," Sojiro chimed in from behind the counter "You did _do_ all of your schoolwork last night, not just mess around with cameras, didn't you?" He asked pointedly.

"O-of course!" Futaba yelped while Ryuji made himself scarce. He wanted to be at the site early today to set up the cameras before the morning anthem recital and this detour was already taking up a big chunk of time.

"You're the best, Futaba!" He called as he ran out of the door and back to the train station, squeezing his way onto the next ride to work.

The site was nearly abandoned when he got there, perfect for setting up a couple illicit cameras under the guise of doing work before anyone else arrived or before Majima woke up in his office. The Phantom Thieves tech expert had really outdone herself this time with her gizmos allowing Ryuji to simply strip off the tape and stick the cameras in enough places to get a good enough view over most of the site, trying to cover every potential hiding spot and sneaking path to catch out the one-eyed man. There was however one small problem with this grand plan of his that he probably should have figured out: while no-one was around when he started sticking cameras around, there certainly were workers by the time he got to about the sixth camera on the frame of a ceiling "Oi!" One of them called, picking up a wrench and moving towards the caught blond "Sakamoto-chan? What the hell you doing out here so early? Get back to the office before you get yourself-" he ranted before catching a glimpse of the box of small lenses "Cameras?" he growled out, eyes narrowing "You some kind of cop?"

"What!?" Ryuji snapped, meeting the worker's glare "The hell makes you think I'm a cop?"

"Okay, I'll spell it out for ya," the worker said, swinging the wrench into the girder for an intimidating clang "You come here with next to no warning but with legit paperwork, next day you're bugging the joint as though your gonna get a bust with 'em," he pointed out "So if you're not a rat or a pig, what the hell you doing with a box of cameras?"

"How do I know you won't rat me out to the boss instead?" Ryuji retorted, eyeing potential escape routes, or seeing if any other people were watching this for when it turned nasty "'Yo Majima-san,'" he said, trying to match the guttural speech of his accuser "'We found the kid trying to stop you jumping out at us all the time, wanna teach him a lesson?' Stuff like that."

"Wait," the worker said, his tone softening as he took a step back "What?"

"Crud!" Ryuji hissed, pressing himself against the wall "Me and my mouth..."

"You're using these to stop Majima sneaking up on you?" the worker said, putting the wrench down but before the blond could get a denial in he immediately perked up "Sweet! Any way you can cut the rest of us in? Come on."

Now it was Ryuji's turn to go "Wait, what?"

"You've only been here for a day, we've been dealing with this crap for months now!" The worker explained "Was worse back on the other site, you think this place is dangerous? Try wheeling piping over a plank while Majima thinks it's freaking hillarious to pop a balloon in your ear."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Ryuji picked the box up again. "Here," he said, showing both the remaining cameras and the earpieces "Just slap the cameras pointing at where you think he's gonna jump us from and stuff the earpiece under the hat. Should work." he explained, putting in an earpiece of his own.

"Man, this is really high tech stuff," the man said, admiring Futaba's handiwork as he took a handful to start distributing around the site "Name's Kenji by the way."

After the morning's ritual Majima Construction was humming like a well oiled machine, which immediately told Goro that something was wrong. Very wrong. He'd known most of the people he'd pulled into this as ex-thugs, people who could bash a few heads if needed but by and large they didn't know the difference between a screw and a bolt after five explanations, but they were working happily wherever he looked. Even Ryuji seemed to have made some inroads into integrating with the workers, he would have been happy if they just didn't try to actively make the kid's week with the firm a living hell but this was unsettlingly easy camaraderie.

Taking a route he was sure no-one saw him going down, he spotted Kenji giving Ryuji a quick guide of the various power tools in use, even handing him a concrete breaker for the schoolkid to get a feel for, but before the Mad Dog could get the jump on either of them, they both turned around with serene smiles on their face. "Oh, Majima-san," Kenji said, repressing the smuggest grin at catching the one-eyed man flat-footed "I was just showing Sakamoto here how to use the concrete breaker for when we gotta get rid of the old foundations, he's here to learn, isn't he?"

"I guess so," Majima replied, gaze full of suspicion "Isn't he a little young to handle this stuff? I don't want some agency on my ass because I let a minor get crushed by a jackhammer."

"I'm not a little kid, I can hold this stuff no problem." Ryuji boasted.

"I'm not gonna let him actually use it, we're not idiots here." Kenji explained despite Majima having evidence to the contrary.

"Right, well... good luck with that then." Majima mumbled, unable to hear the collective giggles as he walked off defeated.

"Kinda feel mean, robbing the old man's fun like this" Ryuji whispered "It's like this is the only thing he gets any joy from."

"Don't worry about it," said Kenji, reassuringly "How about you join the rest us for lunch, I know you can't drink but the bar does some good fried chicken even if it is better after a few. Heh. Figured we all owe you for the cameras."

"Sorry, I've got the box lunch my mom made so..."

"Aww, screw it. Stuff it in the fridge in the office and eat it when we get back. It'll be fine." Kenji dismissed as he put an arm around Ryuji's shoulders and lead him off, not caring too much if it was actually lunch break or not.

Ryuji knew that the workers were trying to be friendly for a change, but the blond was not comfortable sitting in a bar surrounded by people drinking during the day and it was painfully obvious. The bartender was quick to notice, asking the workers if it was alright to be here and cringing when one joked about him being the designated driver. He was getting desperate to break the ice, so he thought of the one subject that kind of united them "So uh... has the boss... always been like that?" He asked nervously.

"Hell yeah he has, used to work with him in the uh-" one of them, Hiroki, responded, cutting himself off when he realised who was talking to "-back before he put up this building deal again. If anything he's a lot nicer now than he was back then."

"God damn lunatic," Kenji muttered "Remember when we had to hide him in spots around Kamurocho? He actually had us bust open manhole covers so he could hide in them!"

"Don't mention the Pocket Circuit deal, never thought I'd be buying kids toys for a grown man."

"Or that time he had us be fake zombies? I almost got shot for that!"

"That wasn't the worst, remember that 80s outfit? The one that looks like he got into a fight with a disco ball and skinned it?"

"He's still got that."

"Seriously!?"

"Yeah, seriously. Roller skates and all." The various workers bantered back and forth before Ryuji interrupted them.

"The hell was he doing all this crap for?" He asked, stunned at the mental images the workers were throwing up.

"Two words, Kiryu-chan." Hiroki said, taking a big drink of his beer as though that was enough of an explanation.

"Who's Kiryu?"

"You don't know!? Ah, it's probably a bit before your time..." Kenji began, beginning a long explanation of Majima's obsession with one man, trying to leave out some details that weren't for the ears of minors.

* * *

Majima was left to pace around his office in what could best be described as a huff. He _knew_ he didn't make a single sound sneaking up on them, that there was no way that they could have seen him in the reflection of anything and they were all way too relaxed looking for it to be paranoia that Majima was everywhere, waiting to strike. It was like everyone suddenly had a Goro-detecting radar in their hats.

He needed to refocus, figure out what was different to yesterday that was screwing with him, and for that he needed to walk around while everyone was out at lunch "They even took Sakamoto-chan this time?" He groaned, thinking that whatever the crew had devised to outsmart him, he might have been able to get something from the schoolkid without having to resort to the old-fashioned way. It might have been more fun but he'd only gotten out of jail a little over a year ago and set up Majima Construction again last November. He couldn't exactly go back to busting heads in the street, not when he was the guy starting it anyway.

Retracing his steps he used to attempt to surprise Kenji, it seemed as though nothing was different. There was no pressure pads tucked in the walkway leading to discreet lights signalling his approach, no mirrors on the site, nothing new. Nothing except a small black rectangle in the corner of his eye. "Sons of bitches..." he growled, plucking the small thing off it's little mount and taking a good look at it. He didn't understand the wiring, how it really worked or anything, just enough to know a camera lens, even a small one, when he saw it.

He'd have to bide his time, wait for his moment and pick the perfect person to strike. Majima knew that if he started questioning his crew he'd get everybody blaming someone else instead of them, even if they legitimately knew nothing about the cameras. Anything to spare them from the wrath of the Mad Dog. As the crew filtered back in from lunch, he took his time. "Sakamoto-chan," he began, his voice a lot more level than it had been before "Could you step into my office please?" he asked, leaving the door open.

Smelling a trap but not being able to really do anything about it, Ryuji walked in to see Goro Majima calmly sat at an office desk with his back to a wall. The desk had various scattered papers but what was most important on it was a familiar black rectangle. "Ho boy." He breathed before he could stop himself, this was not going to be a pleasant meeting.

"So you already know what I asked you in her for." He stated, gesturing for the blond to take a seat "Relax, I'm not gonna bite your head off like I did yesterday." Majima reassured in a not very reassuring way.

"Al-alright..." Ryuji mumbled, taking a seat.

"Right. So, you knew about these cameras around my site?" For some reason, the one-eyed man talking calmly was way more scary than him shouting in rage.

"Yeah?" Ryuji gulped, trying to not let his voice cracked.

"Okay then, who told you about them?" Majima asked "Describe what he looked like if you ain't got a name."

"No-one." Ryuji responded quickly, earning a sigh from the firm boss.

"Look, Sakamoto-chan. Whatever those guys have told you, they ain't worth protecting over this. I mean, spying on your boss... that can be some serious trouble for a lot of people. I got stuff I don't want people knowing in here, and one of these could be watching us now."

"There isn't one in here." Ryuji said with certainty.

"How do you know? Who told you they set them up?" Majima asked, a lot sharper as Ryuji took in a deep breath.

"...Cause they're my cameras," he admitted.

"Yours?" Majima spat, taken aback "Okay, we both know that's bullshit so why don't you stop lying to me and tell me-"

"I'm not lying! Alright! I brought them in and set 'em up," Ryuji snapped at the Mad Dog, standing up and slamming his palms on the table to get in Majima's face for the accusation. "I got mad that you kept jumping out of nowhere to yell at people so I got something set up to stop getting surprised."

Taking a step back and drawing up his full height, the one-eyed man took a good look at the defiant blond, trying to get a good measure of the person he'd taken on for the week, breaking out a small grin "All that spying stuff for getting yelled at for putting a can in the trash?" He asked in a more joking tone "Jeeez. Remind me not to mess with you Sakamoto-chan! But uh... could you take em down anyway, just for me? Consider it lesson learned on my part." He offered as the jovial Kansai accent returned quickly.

"Wait, that's it? No threats to tell the school or anything?" Ryuji asked, taken aback by the sudden snap back.

"What's to tell?" Majima responded, twirling around in the chair with one leg crossed over the other knee "You've found a... interesting solution to a problem you had, but could probably just asked me to knock it off instead. You know: no-one else complained about it, thought maybe they like being kept on their toes but I guess not... like I said, lesson learned. Now get back to work before I have to get on your case for slacking off."

"Alright then..." Ryuji said cautiously, stepping away from the desk and towards the door.

"Oh, and Sakamoto-chan," Majima added as Ryuji was on the way out "If you're gonna be bringing stuff like this in, I'll be keeping a close eye on ya." He said, his grin twisting nastily as Ryuji closed the door behind him.


	4. Chapter 4 - Poster Girl

The third day of career week was already starting to feel off for Ryuji as everyone at the site just milled around by the office, waiting for Majima to show up and begin the morning ritual with a sense of dread. Everyone knew that Majima knew about the cameras and were waiting for what fresh hell he could come up with in retaliation, so when the one-eyed man casually opened his trailer door instead of kicking it open they were already off balance. "Alright guys, I'm gonna need you to hold down the fort on this one. If you don't know what you're supposed to be doing, find someone who does and ask them," He explained, clutching a cardboard file in one hand while the various workers turned to each other, shrugging their shoulders and moving on to do what was nominally their jobs "Except you Sakamoto-chan!" He called out as Ryuji was about to leave as well "You're with me today, so drop the hard hat and get in the van."

Those last four words were never going to sound good coming from a guy looking like Majima and after yesterday's confrontation, Ryuji really didn't want to be spending alone time with the boss "Uh... wouldn't it be better if one of the other guys went?" He suggested, looking like he was gonna run.

"Nope, gotta be you," Majima re-affirmed, practically pulling Ryuji to the company van with an arm around his shoulder "Come on, I'll drive. And yes, just 'cause I only got one eye doesn't mean I can't drive. Got a court order for it." He said in a way that managed to induce more fear in the heart of the blond.

Surprisingly, once he'd gotten over such timeless gags such as "Hey, that light's green right? 'Cause I can't see" Goro Majima was a fairly calm driver, even if the atmosphere in the cab was especially awkward as they drove through downtown Tokyo, not even a message from another Phantom Thief was going to make this any less stressful. It could, however, make it a lot worse. "You gonna get that?" Majima asked, hearing Ryuji's phone buzzing in his pocket.

"It okay to take calls on the clock?" Ryuji asked.

"I'm just driving, you're just sitting. Go nuts." Majima dismissed, trying to keep his eye on the road while Ryuji fished for his phone.

"Hello?" he asked, not bothering to check who it was from.

"Ryuji, it's me. Are you at Majima Construction site right now?" Came the distorted response, probably Futaba using a voice changer on her phone.

"Fu-" He began only for a loud screech to cut him off.

"No names! Are you at the site? This is important!"

"Wha-" Ryuji winced, taking solace in the fact he was on Majima's eye-patched side "No, I'm not. Why?" He asked, not really understanding what had spooked the orange haired hacker so much. He'd handed her back all of the cameras and earpieces already, what's the problem?

"Good. Listen Ryuji, that guy you're working for a week with, he's not who he seems he is," Futaba began "He's Yakuza. Not ex-Yakuza, not 'oh I'm actually an honourable warrior who would never harm an innocent' Yakuza, not even a fake Yakuza who gets tattoos to make himself sound tougher than he is! A totally 100 percent real scary deal Yakuza like the type Shido had working for him."

"For real!?" Ryuji yelled, turning back to the now wincing Majima with his mind racing. He'd gotten in this guy's face yesterday, and now it was turning out that he was riding with a guy who probably used to throw the remains of punk kids like himself in the Tokyo bay.

"Jeez, keep the volume down!" Majima complained, smacking Ryuji on the back of the head with enough force to force him to scramble to keep the phone by his head.

"Sorry! Sorry," Ryuji frantically apologized. To be honest, he was kind of angry at himself that he hadn't clued in earlier. The weird fashion sense, the eye patch and other scars, the small hints of a tattoo under the snake skin jacket "Actually... yeah that makes a lot of sense. Figures."

"Oh my god Ryuji is he actually with you?" Futaba asked incredulously.

"Well... yeah?"

"Ugh! I'm using this as a tracker. If you end up buried alive in a shallow grave, this should find you before you run out of air. Ping me something if your not dead. Over and out."

"Hey don't you over and out me! There's like five-" Ryuji began before the dial tone interrupted his inquisition leaving him with a long groan of desperation before turning back to the one-eyed man driving him around the city "So... uh... where are we even going?" He asked, hoping to get an answer that wasn't some place in the middle of nowhere with a shovel.

"Did I not tell you? I'm sure I told everyone what day today was." Majima asked, tilting his head to on

"Not me, Majima-san." Ryuji replied, adding the honorific quickly and suspiciously. If Majima wasn't having to focus on driving he'd probably be giving the blond such a look for the sudden formality.

"Huh, okay then." The elder man said. Letting the awkward silence return.

"Okay...where I are we going then?" Ryuji asked again.

"Right, we're heading to this modelling studio because I asked to get some advertising shoots done and you're the best looking one of the bunch apart from me. Hope you look good without a shirt," Majima began, letting Ryuji's face scrunch up with the effort of not yelling in retaliation "Joking, Sakamoto-chan. I just want you there so it's less creepy than a bunch of old men staring at a bunch of girls, they're around your age I think."

"Oh..." Ryuji mumbled, not sure if this time he was being serious.

* * *

The past few days had been fairly quiet for Ann, even if she had committed to doing modelling work for the whole week it was still a case of whether or not the work was actually there. Today however, was certainly looking to be a busy one: make-up and costumes were set up for a two hour long block and that meant serious business, especially when the fake tattoos were wheeled out to them. All the models were having to wear the same outfit for a group shot and then one of them would have to stay for solo poses meaning the internal competition was fierce as ever and it was starting to weigh on people "You're a life saver Shiho." Ann purred as she was handed a much needed bottle of water.

"Thank you, this was way better than getting some office job for a week." The ponytail-wearing girl replied with a smile.

"Yeah, can't believe there's more than one school doing career weeks. Doesn't everyone know they suck?" the blonde asked as she turned awkwardly in her outfit. Black leather pants and a white tube top were bad enough but the fake tattoos were almost too much. At least the snakeskin jacket that they had to wear covered up nearly everything anyway.

"Tell me about it," Shiho groaned "I think they're just using it as a test to see who actually pays attention long enough to get a good way out of it."

"Yup, too bad the brain trust weren't that smart," Ann joked in between gulps of water "Ryuji really got it bad, his boss is like really crazy. Apparently, this one time he-" she began to tell only for the director to knock on the dressing room door, demanding their attention.

"Takamaki! The client's here already!" The director yelled through thick wood.

"Crap, already?" Ann mumbled, fumbling with the eye patch and gloves that were supposed to complete the outfit "Just a second!" She yelled back.

"No just a seconding! He's here and he wants to do the group shot! Remember to pick the bat up from the props bin!" The director insisted.

"Fine! Coming out!" Ann replied, snapping on the black gloves and striding out "See you in a bit Shiho." she said back before closing the door and coming face to face with Ryuji on the other side.

"A-Ann?!" The delinquent stuttered as they gaped at each other "The hell are you doing here?"

"I-I work here you idiot!" Ann yelled back "What the hell are _you _doing here?" she asked, pointing a gloved hand into his chest "You know what, forget it. I'm gonna be late for the group shot, talk later." She declared before running as fast as she could in the costume without giving Ryuji a chance to ask why she was dressed like his boss.

Goro Majima had made himself comfortable in the director's chair with an old school megaphone in hand "Forgive me for asking, but," the photographer began as the models, all in snakeskin jackets assembled in front of the backdrop "I don't really see what this has to do with a construction firm."

"It's all in the branding, kid," Majima answered the man who was possibly older than he was.

"I see." Was the reply, implying that he didn't see but knew when not to press an issue. The group shot went smoothly enough, even if Majima did insist in correcting a few poses for his own personal vision, much to the annoyance of the photographer and the actual director who probably knew what they were doing more than the one-eyed man did. Ryuji however, was left sitting next to him, keeping his mouth shot and trying not to look awkward during the posing. Especially when it came to the solo shots.

A bunch of attractive women posing... for lack of a better word... seductively was making this a lot more stressful for Ryuji than he'd hoped, Ann's smirk every time she caught a glimpse of him suffering while Majima levelled a critical gaze over everyone. "Nope, not feeling the Majima spirit here." The one eyed man dismissed the sixth model in as many minutes.

"Don't know why you're so smug about this," grumbled Ryuji in a small break, forcing himself to look at a wall while Ann loomed over him "Everyone else isn't making him budge."

"Well that's 'cause I've got a secret weapon." Ann taunted as she poured both her and Shiho some coffee, handing the cup to her dark-haired friend as she walked past, her other hand full of various bits of paperwork.

"I'm just not seeing what you want out of these girls," The photographer complained "You wanted a sense of danger, something sultry but not too much, the outfit's a little... out there," he trailed off noticing the glare he was getting from the man in the director's chair.

"I'll know it when I see it, alright?" Majima waved off as Ryuji shuffled back to the stool next to him "Who's next on the list?"

"Takamaki Ann," the director told him, turning back to face the backdrop again "Ann! You're up!" He called to no reply "Takamaki!" he called again to no avail before wondering "Where is she..?"

While Ann was nowhere to be found, Shiho wasn't. The temporary assistant was now making her way stealthily as possible behind Ryuji, trying to make sure the blond didn't hear he approach until it was too late, both hands shoving him off his stool and sending him stumbling into the backdrop.

"Ah what the hell Shiho!?" Ryuji called out from the ground, echoing the thought of all the men watching until Ann picked her moment to strike.

"RYUJI-CHAN!" Was the high pitched yell from the blonde as she sprang up from behind the back drop, her prop baseball bat lifting up Ryuji's chin as he looked on in panic "You've gone soft on me, haven't you? Where's that fire in your eyes?" She taunted, throwing on a blatantly fake Kansai accent for good measure.

At that moment, Ryuji knew that this was going to be his last day on this planet. Ann was making fun imitating a guy who probably had a murder count in the double digits, possibly even triple, and she was doing it with information only he could have given to her. He didn't dare look over to see what Majima was doing, if he was grinding his teeth in rage, glaring at the back of his head or something while the photographer and the director looked on in stunned silence.

"It's... perfect!" Majima suddenly announced, shaking the photographer with a manic grin "Now! Now! That's the shot I want! That's the Majima construction spirit!" He declared as Shiho threw a thumbs up from the back wall to the victorious Ann.

* * *

"Don't look so mad at me, Ryuji-chan~" Ann teased over a cup of Leblanc coffee "It was a secret weapon after all."

"Dude..." Ryuji breathed, looking at her with a pale face "Do you know who the hell you were messing with?"

"Other than you and your crazy boss? Crazy in a good way for someone who looks like they were four hundred years too late to be a pirate," Ann dismissed "At least your boss takes you out to places and do stuff, Mishima's been stuck with this loan company guy... Akiyama I think, yeah he's spending the week constantly tidying everything."

"Dude... just... dude... call Futaba, ask her about my boss." Ryuji instructed. She did, and then she looked back at Ryuji with all the colour drained from her face.

"Why did you not tell me this before I did the fake accent?" She asked very slowly.

"You didn't wanna talk!" Ryuji snapped, defensively.

"I'd have time for this! I could have gotten us both killed acting like that!" Ann yelled before the panic subsided "Well... at least he liked it..." she mumbled, tracing the edge of her cup with her finger.

"Right..." Ryuji sighed "But anyway, Ann... you said you're still getting paid for this week?" he asked.

"Yeah?" Ann replied, trying to calm herself with more caffeine.

"Since it was me telling you about him that got you the solo gig... can you cut me in? C'mon, I've got gym fees to pay!"

* * *

**A/N: And that's how Ann got the Majima outfit for Dancing Star Night**


	5. Chapter 5 - Workplace Hazards

The Phantom Thieves (less Joker and Morgana, they weren't due back in Tokyo until the weekend) had been brought together in Futaba's bedroom, trying to squeeze into the cramped space as they crowded around a bright screen, a still manic grin smiling back from a one-eyed picture "So this," Futaba declared "Is Goro Majima: The Mad Dog of the Shimano family, official Yakuza mad man for three decades, current CEO of Majima Construction and Ryuji's boss for two more days."

"I thought he sounded familiar." Makoto said thoughtfully.

"How would you know an infamous underworld figure?" Yusuke asked, trying not to look at the image. The Asymmetry caused by the eye patch was a bit much to keep looking at for too long.

"About two years ago, there was a big case where several high ranking Yakuza members got arrested and Sae was assigned to it. It was her biggest accomplishment as a prosecutor." the law student explained.

"Then how did he get out in such a short time?" Haru asked in return "And why is he running a construction company?"

"It's gotta be a front, right? Those guys on the site said they worked with him in the nineties, so they're probably his goon squad from back then." Ryuji concluded.

"Dunno if it's legitimate or not, but I do know how he got busted out in less than a year, and it's all... like sixty percent of bad stuff that seems to happen to us, because of this asshole." Futaba continued, bringing up a familiar bald head. A face none of the thieves were happy to see.

"Shido!?" Yelled Ryuji, jumping up on the bed.

"Yup, looks like even before the election he was pulling favours from everyone, and one of them was getting our building-site pirate out of a jail cell, but get this: Majima Construction only started up after Shido went to jail... but it also existed over ten years ago before folding when he went underground and probably back in to the mob. Trail's a little hard going back though, internet was really bad back then. It's like trying to play VCR stuff on anything made after 2010." Futaba explained.

"So... it is a front? He made a theme song for his fake business?" asked Ann.

"Probably, the guy's like really weird enough to do something like that." Ryuji agreed.

"Wait, wasn't there a Yakuza guy in Shido's palace? Maybe that was his cognition of Majima." Haru suggested.

"But the Cleaner had both eyes and didn't smile." Makoto pointed out.

"Maybe he didn't really know his face too well? Politicians and gangsters keep their face to face meetings as limited as possible."

"And he's definitely the type who would probably stab someone in the back 'cause someone offered to touch up his ink," Ryuji agreed "But now we know who and what he is, the heck do we do about him? It's not like we can go and Phantom Thief his ass."

"Don't know if there's anything we can do," Haru lamented "He was formally released from prison so unless he's doing something wrong other than being a jerk we can't exactly report him to the police."

"Unfortunately, your best bet is to keep your head down for the past two days and report it to Kawakami to make sure no-one else from the school has to work with him." Makoto suggested.

"Come on Ryuji, two more days. You can last that long without doing something stupid." Ann reassured him, patting him on the shoulder.

"I think I just heard Morgana in my head saying 'no you can't.'" Groaned the blond.

* * *

The atmosphere was tense at Majima Construction as Ryuji tried to ease his way through the day not talking. Fortunately he had the perfect excuse to act anti-social towards the Yakuza goons turned construction workers, the preview images of the photoshoot from yesterday were already proudly displayed in the office, giving the older but somehow less mature members of staff something to laugh about and a reason for the blond to give them all the cold shoulder for the rest of the week. From morning through to lunch and throughout the afternoon he kept his interactions with the gang as limited as possible, only giving basic responses and doing the work he was told.

It was frustrating as all hell, Ryuji hadn't felt as though he was in a situation he couldn't do anything about beyond trying to ignore it since Kamoshida's reign of terror and it was gnawing on his patience. He was just waiting to catch Majima doing something obviously heinous, but even then what could he do? Report it to the cops? To the school? Without proof no-one was gonna take him seriously and by the time he could get back with Futaba to re-establish the cameras and get proof it might be too late.

Frustrations were starting to boil over as he made the trudge back to the nearest metro station, his fist bounced off several light poles as his heels dragged along the pavement while he sulked most of the way, begging for the chance to do something and with a high pitched scream in a nearby alley, he took off looking for trouble.

What he'd found was an older woman was sitting up against a wall, shopping bags scattered around her as she breathed out "My purse!" while pointing around a corner. Needing little else, Ryuji jogged around the corner, pacing himself to catch the no-doubt running purse snatcher before he got away, even taking the time to yell "HEY! ASSHOLE!" Unfortunately for him, the crook in question wasn't running away.

Whatever or whoever he was expecting to be behind a purse snatching, a seven foot tall wall of muscle wasn't one of them. He was wearing a black tank top with camo print jeans, his head had been shaved bald except for a blonde mohawk, he looked like the kind of guy that could rip an ATM out of a wall, let alone grabbing someone's handbag. "You talking to me?" He asked in a low growl as he turned around to see just who had a death wish.

"Crud..." Ryuji mumbled to himself as he craned his neck back just to look at the mugger's head, he _had _gone looking for trouble, just trouble was looking a whole lot bigger up close "I don't see anyone else around." He said, trying and failing at keeping his voice from cracking with fear.

"Heh," the thief chuckled with an evil smile "So a punk kid _did_ call Mr Shakedown an asshole. Thought I'd just imagined someone being that stupid."

"Mr Shakedown?" Ryuji sputtered "The hell? Trying out for a movie bad guy name. I could have come up with something better than that, and you're calling me an idiot!"

Mr Shakedown's smile was quickly dropped "Okay you little brat. You don't look like you got any money on you, so I'm going to give you to the count of ten to get out of my face before I put you through a wall," He declared, holding up a hand to add to the point.

Ryuji was paralyzed on the spot as Mr Shakedown began the count, he know he should run away and tell the cops. A guy like this couldn't exactly hide away from the law easily even if it would take a squad car to make it an even fight, not all the people in a squad car, an actual squad car heading for him at top speed. "One, two, three..."

On the other hand though: "Four, five si-UGH!" Mr Shakedown yelled up as Ryuji hit him in the jaw, stretching himself just to make contact with a punch that was more shoryuken than a traditional blow but nonetheless send the big man pitching backwards onto the pavement much to the surprise of the Phantom thief.

"Holycrap!" Ryuji squeaked in shock, he just knocked down a man that was at least twice the size of him in one punch, "I'll be taking that back, thank you~" he said with a massive grin, reaching down to grab the dropped handbag before the giant roared back into life "Whoa!" Ryuji yelped as he ducked an arm the size of a steel girder trying to swat him into a wall. Knocking down was not the same as knocking out.

"Raargh!" Mr Shakedown yelled, swinging wildly as he tried to get back at the punk who dared to knock him down. For Ryuji it was like being back in the metaverse, fighting yet another ugly shadow only this time he couldn't fry the guy with lightning if he got desperate. Just dodge the slow attacks and hit back when he got the chance. A punch to the side didn't knock him down the way the uppercut had, but that was a million to one shot, for the rest he was just going to have to chop the big tree down.

A ducked swing later and the blond's best laid plans were thrown into the gutter, Mr Shakedown followed up another slow swing with a kick that Ryuji took too long to notice, he tried to change direction as soon as possible but the pressure made his leg twinge, that moment of pain was all the distraction Shakedown needed to put his footprint on the student's ribcage.

Flying backwards to the ground every bone and muscle in Ryuji's body hated him right now, his back buckled as he bounced off the pavement, his chest felt as though it was stuck in a too tight straightjacket when it wasn't just pure agony, his arms were shredded by the rough surface as he broke his own fall and there was somewhere between a ringing and a buzzing stuck on loop in his ears. All that from one kick, and even then Ryuji was slowly climbing back up to his feet, instinctively reaching out to grab a weapon to swing, something to even the odds. A bloodied hand found something in the alley, a discarded bit of wood, possibly an old skirting board graced his finger tips as he rose back to face the bigger man once again, every breath coming with a fresh wave of pain.

Mr Shakedown was breathing heavy as he loomed over Ryuji, looking to put an end to the nuisance that ruined his afternoon as he raised his fist for a punch that could have dented masonry, but the blond had managed to shuffle himself out of the direct line of fire by the time he threw the punch, and now Ryuji was behind him with his improvised weapon raised, ready to swing before a gloved hand grasped it from behind "Huh?" Ryuji gasped out, turning around as fast as his aching body would let him to see the one eyed glare of the Mad Dog.

"Kid..." Majima let out in a low voice "put it down before you get hurt even worse." he said, tugging at the plywood in Ryuji's grasp and yanking it free with a twist.

"Luck... lucky for you..." Mr Shakedown wheezed, trying to pull himself back up "If your dad hadn't shown up I would have-" Was all he said before a long piece of plywood came crashing down on his skull sending the big man down into an involuntary crouch, all the while Goro Majima casually strolled over to grab at his chin, discarding the now broken wood "Y-you're!" Mr Shakedown gasped before Majima swung his steel-capped boot straight into his jaw sending the giant on a one way ticket to the hospital.

"Thought he looked familiar," Majima mused as he picked up the discarded handbag "Might as well give this back, come on Sakamoto-chan. Let's get you patched up," He said, letting the kansai accent and jovial tone return as Ryuji was left gaping at his boss. "What, he broke your jaw as well? You really know how to run dick-first into danger, don't you? First me, now this guy." He joked, putting an arm around the staggering student as he led him back to the site office to fetch some medical supplies.

"Can't let your parents see you like this after work, you know. They'd think I did it, that I'm an irresponsible employer or something and then I get the Health and Safety guys on my ass and let me tell you they got even more sticks up their own since the last time." Majima said casually as he ran an antiseptic wipe over Ryuji's arm in the comfort of his own office.

Ryuji on the other hand wasn't up to responding much, leaving Majima to fill out the conversation on his own "Fancy running into a guy like Shakedown though, didn't know creeps like that still walked the streets in this decade. Not your average mugger, eh? Like someone from an 80s action movie."

"...'s what I said..." Ryuji muttered under difficult breathing.

"Alright that's the arms fixed up, got some heat spray for the leg or an ice pack. Which's best?" Majima asked, wrapping up his charge's arms.

"Ice pack... needs to stop the swelling first. Like a sprain." Ryuji said, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible.

"Ice, gotcha," Majima agreed as he rooted through the company fridge for the ice draw "So why'd you end up fighting him?" He asked eventually, dropping the playful voice.

"...stole a handbag..." Ryuji mumbled, letting the cold sooth away some of the pain.

"That's reason to call the cops, not go chasing after someone who could have put you six feet under, so why fight him?" Majima continued.

"...had to do something..." Ryuji replied quietly.

"Okay... so what got you so wound up that your first idea of 'something' is to punch a guy?" Majima asked trying to look the young blond in the eyes and meeting Ryuji's angry glare "I know you punched a teacher before, turned out he was neck deep in really heinous stuff and that was before he broke your leg. So what got you so pissed off this time that you get yourself in another fight you weren't gonna win?" He asked sharply, pushing through despite the shocked expression "Your school gave me a file on you, just letting me know what I was in for. Wasn't expecting to see it first hand."

Ryuji didn't say anything, but the heavy sigh as he went back to trying to avoid Majima's gaze told the older man enough. "You found out who I am, right?" he sighed, pulling back and strutting to his desk.

"The Mad Dog of Shimano..." Ryuji said, leaning back in his chair as he tried to get as comfortable as possible.

"Seeing how fast you brought out the cameras, I would have thought you'd figured that out way before now. Besides, that's ancient history so what's got you wound up tighter than a... something I'm not to say in front of minors."

"...that you were in jail two years ago, and Shido busted you out to do his dirty work..."

"Shido?" Whispered Majima "Wouldn't have put you down as someone who cared about politics, Sakamoto-chan."

"I care about people being assholes." Ryuji said defensively.

"Heh, gathered that." Majima chuckled, reaching for a cigarette packet.

"If your a Yakuza," Ryuji began as Majima took out his lighter "Did you know Kaneshiro?" he asked "Tried to blackmail me and my friends for three million yen, and said he'd give us to traffickers if we didn't pay up in time."

"The fat guy? Not my clan... but I get your point," Majima admitted, blowing a smoke ring into the air "The underground game changed a lot since my heyday, a lot of things that we used to call off limits are now anyone's game. Not that we were angels or anything but my brother, he would go nuts about how the new breed were so disrespectful to traditions and the like and I used to think that in a lot of ways he was full of shit, but seeing a guy like Kaneshiro walk around with his little slice of Tokyo... most of the Tojo clan threw a party when he 'fessed up and went into the slammer," the Mad Dog reminisced "It was funny, doing drinks in the name of a group you thought was just a stupid playground rumour and suddenly they're everywhere."

"You did drinks in the name of the Phantom Thieves?" Ryuji blurted out before kicking himself mentally. It must have been some blow to the head, that's what he'd say to the group if he got out of this alive.

"Yeah should have drunk more when they got Shido as... well..." Majima trailed off, stubbing out his cigarette before rounding on Ryuji. "How'd you know it was the Phantom Thieves?" He asked, accusingly.

"W-well... playground rumours and shit, I'm a kid, it's kids stuff so-" Ryuji tried to dismiss.

"You got worked up about me working for Shido, met the Tick of Tokyo before he gets sent to jail and the guy you punched in the face got busted as well." Majima rattled off.

"H-hey, all those guys were dickbags who pissed off a lot of people, doesn't mean I'm a Phantom Thief," Ryuji snapped before the two paused, waiting for the coin to drop "...Shit."

Ryuji wasn't sure how this hardened Yakuza was going to react, but he wasn't expecting the manic laughter as the Mad Dog put an arm around his shoulder "Oh man... oh that's classic. I ask for a kid to be an extra pair of hands and make this place look more legit, they send me a Phantom Thief! Guess they really wanted to make sure I'd be on the straight and narrow." Majima laughed "Okay then Sakamoto-chan. There's only one thing for it."

"W-what?" Ryuji asked nervously.

"Isn't it obvious? It's fate!" Majima declared, rooting through his desk "Lot of the Yakuza were shit scared of you guys, and now you're just a kid? Can't have that. It's humiliating soo..." he said, pulling a small key out of a draw and shoving it into a wall, letting everything click into place and a partition reveal itself, unlocking Goro Majima's own personal armoury "I gotta train you up, make you someone that'd _really_ make the scum of the earth shit their pants." He announced with a crazed grin.

* * *

**A/N: Took longer than intended to get this done, but schedules are made to over-run**


	6. Chapter 6 - Last Day of the Week

Miss Kawakami was feeling fairly satisfied in her organisational skills as she sat in her office with a checklist on a clipboard in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. It was the end of career week and no-one who'd gotten an assigned job for the five days had come back in tears or traction, even if the report Mishima had gotten from Sky Finances had tried to be delicate around the issue of just how bored the mid had been it could be taken as an important lesson in of itself: preparation prevents getting stuck having to do the cleaning for a guy who's stinking rich but doesn't want to hire a cleaner. Now it was Ryuji's Sakamoto's turn for the post-work meeting and the report she'd gotten from Majima Construction was positively glowing.

"So, how did you enjoy working in construction?" She asked with a smile on her face as the blond walked in "Majima seemed impressed enough with your work."

"Well..." Ryuji began.

_~Deep in sleeples Kamuro on the edge of the Western Sky~_

"Heads up everyone!" The Mad Dog called out through the megaphone after the morning song "Today's the last day Sakamoto-chan's going to be with us, so we're doing something a little different after lunch, so get ready for that and no getting hammered at the bar!" he announced to general murmuring amongst the workers.

"So... what do you want me to do, boss? Sensei? Boss." Ryuji asked as the rest dispersed to their regular work.

"You! You are... going with Kenji and helping him with the riveting." Majima instructed, pointing across the site dramatically.

"And this helps in my training how?"

"It helps in your training by not getting me in trouble with the guys who want this place built! Now get going! Jobs to do! Chop chop!"

_~Above Fuji, we will look down as we build a bright new day~_

As most of the crew worked ahead, Goro and only his most trusted cohorts, henchmen and goons were gathered around an architectual sketch in the office "You know it would be harder if we could get some spike strips here, you guys standing over here ready to swing... maybe something that can shoot a spout of flame..." the one eyed man mumbled.

"Are we trying to train him or just kill him?" Hiroki asked, hunched over with a pencil in hand.

"We got fire extinguishers! Okay, no to the spikes, you'll just have to settle with the regular bats..." Majima groaned.

_~It's a school where the youth all gather to learn all of life's mysteries~_

The actual construction work part of the day didn't last long, within a few hours he was back in the office, looking at the armoury with an open mouth before Majima threw a padded motorcycle jacket at it "So what's your Phantom Thief fight style? Bare hands, blades, blunt instruments?" The Mad dog asked as he twirled assorted implements of pain while the high-school student struggled with the protective clothing.

"I uh... hit things with stuff, sometimes a bat, sometimes it's a pipe that sort of stuff." Ryuji said, watching Majima slowly turn towards him with a disdainful look in his eye.

"You just... hit things with stuff?" He asked incredulously.

"Uh... yeah?"

"No technique at all?"

"There's technique to swinging a pipe?"

"Jeez!" Majima groaned as he pulled an old black bat from its place on the wall "No wonder Shakedown whooped your ass!"

_~Smiles are what we create: Majima Construction~_

"You sure about this?" Ryuji asked nervously, letting the worn bat swing by his side.

"Listen, when I tell someone to hit me, they gotta hit me or I get mad, so stop pansying around and swing for the fences!" Majima demanded.

"But you're not holding a weapon!" Ryuji protested.

"...Shit your right. This isn't fair is it," the Mad Dog conceded, pulling his hard hat over his eye completely "Okay, now it's fair." he taunted.

With a deep breath and a loud yell that rocked the walls, Ryuji took a running start and swung the bat out wide as though he was trying to hit a fastball and not cave in another man's chest. Helping that illusion was the fact that Majima was no longer in the way of the bat and instead standing off to the side, swinging his own arm out to let the edge of his palm strike the back of the blond's neck, sending him stumbling into the desk.

_~Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima Construction~_

"Okay so watch and learn," Goro instructed, swinging the bat back and forth like a nunchuck, alternating the arm to keep the metal moving before tucking it back under his arm and handing it to Ryuji "Now you give it a shot." He said, watching the intense expression of concentration of Ryuji as his grip immediately slipped as he tried to grasp the bulk of the bat and dropped it on his foot.

~Each and every nail that we pound, we do so together~

It had taken a bit of work and the crew were grumbling about missing their daily liquid lunch but Majima construction had successfully turned the construction site into an obstacle course that if not from Hell was certainly from Michigan. Majima was beaming as Ryuji looked on in horror "Don't worry," the one eyed man said with confidence "It's not gotta kill you, you gotta go back to school tomorrow!"

_~With a smile, so many smiles! They are the mother of profit~_

As heavy breathing echoed throughout the construction site, occasionally punctuated with the clang of a bat hitting a steel girder, Majima sidled over to Kenji "So... this is impossible right?" He asked.

"We all took one look at it and decided none of us could do it, boss." Kenji replied dutifully.

"That's not saying much, a lot of you guys are out of shape." Majima commented.

"Look at this," Kenji said, pulling out the completed course design sketch "There's no way a kid's gonna be able to move the tire at the end of the first leg of running across the beams and climbing up and down the ladder. The guys swinging bats at him are just extra to make him duck, he's gonna be out of breath in no time."

"Good, good, little extra humility for the first day... they do all have water and meds to give him so he doesn't die, right?" the Mad Dog casually asked.

"Uhh..." Kenji stumbled over words, his own memory betraying him at the worst time.

"Kenji..." Majima growled "If this ends up in a hospital trip, you're gonna need an ambulance as well."

_~Regardless of day or night, we will sweat until the job is done~_

"Hey Gedo-chan! How's business?" Majima cooed over the phone, he was back in the office, feet on the desk while he waited for Ryuji to wear himself out "Listen, remember that JUSTIS gang two years ago? Do you reckon you could... no? Right, right. No problem. What about those uh... what were they called... the guys who did superkicks all the time! Got told to go home 'cause they were being dicks. How about you send those guys over to the site and we throw down like old times, huh?" He asked with a smile that was quickly removed "The hell is A-E-W!?"

_~We will renovate tomorrow: Majima Construction~_

The sound of cheers and applause gave the one-eyed man the cue he needed to walk back into the office. As expected: Ryuji Sakamoto was barely being held up by Kenji and Hiroki slinging his arms over their shoulders as he cursed the sadists who designed the death course "All of you," the blond gasped "Freaking... suck so much..."

"Ah, Sakamoto-chan," Goro teased with a massive grin "How can we learn our limits if we don't push them?"

"I'll... push... that god damn bat... up your ass... you mother..." was all Ryuji could respond before his brain decided it needed more oxygen than his mouth and his head drooped down.

"You're gonna have to hit me or buy me dinner first Sakamoto-chan!" Majima joked before looking up at the two thugs holding him up. "So what did him in? The tire flipper? The hammer swings? The girder monkey-bars?" He asked the suddenly nervous grunts.

"Uh... none of those." Kenji mumbled.

"Eh?" Majima asked, taking an uncomfortable step closer.

"Ryuji, he uh... finished the course." Hiroki answered in a whisper.

"WHAT!?" Majima yelled with enough force to even wake up Ryuji.

"Hah..." the blond breathed with a satisfied smile on his exhausted face.

_~Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima Construction~_

"Right, you assholes! I'll show you that when I say 'make an impossible course' you're gonna freaking make one!" Majima yelled through his megaphone as he stood by the starting line "If any of you are still here by the time I finish this thing, I'm ripping off one arm per person! Everyone who fucks off and runs? I'M A RIP OFF EVERY LIMB YOU GOT!" he screeched, dramatically discarding the megaphone with an ear-piercing whine of feedback while he set off into the site with a sprint.

_~What we will strive to create, its impact yet unknown~_

It had been an hour since Majima had dashed off into his self-designed course of death and there was still no sign of him, unnerving the various workers/thugs/goons "If he dies are we safe?" Kenji asked.

"Well it means he won't have finished... so I guess?" Hiroki suggested, passing Ryuji his fifth bottle of water, which the blonde quickly drained in a few large gulps, handing the bottle back for a refill.

_~It will shake the world we know, our righteous lifestyle~_

Eventually Goro Majima was found lying flat on a girder, completely out of breath with his head propped up on a tractor tire, cursing the sky in a far away voice before he was soaked with Ryuji's eighth bottle of water.

_~As only a starved dog can do, blaze a path on the untrodden road~_

"Right!" Majima declared as he booted open the door to his office and staggered in, Ryuji trying not to stumble behind him "Now that we've all got... gotten a good feel for your ability to not be worn out..." he slurred, taking a shot of some energy drink to keep him going.

"Stamina." Ryuji corrected with an evil smug grin, even if every muscle hated him right now it was worth it.

"Fuck you I was gonna say it. Stamina! Now we know how much of that shit you got, we can start thinking about fights more, and you got waaay too much for just a kid." He explained "So the bat is really freaking good for you, 'cause it hurts like... well not as bad as how I feel but pretty bad, and it takes energy to swing it all the time and people can get out the way. Like me! So, here's the plan."

"...What plan?" Ryuji asked after Majima just collapsed into his office chair.

"Wha?" Majima asked in return.

"You just said 'here's the plan' and sat down."

"That _is_ my plan 'cause I almost passed out you Energizer Bunny asshole! Give me a break!"

_~We will start a revolution, Majima Construction~_

"So this is gonna suck if it hits you. So try and block as many of these as you can." Majima explained, his voice returning to its non-exhausted high pitch as he picked out a telescoping pole for himself while handing back the black baseball bat to Ryuji.

"Block how?" Ryuji asked before a lash of metal caught him on the shoulder, stinging through the fake-leather jacket.

"Block better than that! That's how!" Majima yelled before going in for a barrage of swings.

_~Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima, Majima Construction~_

"You know, I was a lot freaking worse than you were starting out," Majima said wistfully as his pole clashed against Ryuji's weapon. The one eyed man's face a serene expression of calm compared to fiery determination of the Phantom Thief's bruised visage "I've held back more against true vets of the game yet you're still standing." He said, sounding legitimately impressed as Ryuji let out a roar of frustration and shoved the Yakuza backwards.

"Rargh!" Ryuji let out as he charged forward, ramming Goro into his desk and doubling him over, pressing the bat in his neck as he glared down with bared teeth at his tormentor slash regular mentor.

"Okay smart guy, you got me pinned, now what?" Majima asked through a massive grin "You got both hands holding me down and this ain't the worst position I've been in, so unless you're gonna do something all I've got to do is-" he rambled before Ryuji did indeed do something. The blonde threw his head down towards Goro with as much force as he could, the impact ringing out beyond the office walls and out into the yard, every worker stopping to look at what was that terrifying loud clash, before wondering what had caused Majima to burst out into hysterical laughter _this_ time "Ask a stupid question..."

_~He's the man as you saw: Goro Majima, Majima Con-struc-tion!~_

"It's alright I guess," Ryuji confessed, shrugging his shoulders "Don't know if I'd wanna make it a career, but the boss was cool."

* * *

**A/N: Using the lyrics from the English trailer rather than translating the Japanese one. It's got a better rhythm written down.**  
**Also: While this is the end of the work week, this is not the end of the story. It's just I'm not sure whether to call the end of this one now and start a new one in the same series or just let this extend onward forever.**


	7. Chapter 7 - Getting the Gang Together

As far as Goro Majima was concerned, it was official: Sundays sucked. He would burst out of the little bed he made in his office with a big smile on his face and megaphone in hand only to get the grim reminder of what day of the week it was from the deserted site and ambient traffic noises, and every week the Mad Dog would turn on his heels and walk with slumped shoulders back into the office, closing the door behind him as he flopped down into the office chair and stared at the mountain of paperwork that was piling on his desk. This was supposed to be the future, a paperless office! But now there was way more of the stuff then even back managing both The Grand and Club Sunshine, everything needed signing for and proof that this was totally not a Yakuza front for a Tojo Clan that couldn't even rob candy from babies any more.

He had hoped that maybe Ryuji would have come back to him at some point, on the Friday it seemed as though the kid was serious about being trained by Majima but reality of being a high school student meant that he wasn't coming to the outskirts of Tokyo to be pummelled until he learned the finer arts of being hit with stuff. Maybe the assault course had been a step too far and spooked off the delinquent, it was a step too far for Majima that's for sure. He'd never felt so _old_.

"It's not locked!" He called out as someone knocked on the door, giving a low groan as Daigo Dojima walked in, all suited up with the Tojo Clan badge still on his lapel "Hey, Dojima... when did I get old?" He asked, not bothering to even look at the chairman while he lit a cigarette.

"Ten years ago?" The young chairman suggested, not that he was that young any more, even he was pushing forty and had the lines on his face to show it "Don't really know what you mean, Majima, even a year ago you were still acting with about as much maturity as a grade-schooler."

"Eh?" Majima snapped up "When was I immature about being stuck in a hole for most a year?"

"Don't you remember what you said when you took the stand?" He asked as realisation slowly dawned on the one-eyed man's face as he broke into a smile "Seriously, how did you think that was going to end?"

It had been hilariously dumb, at the time and just dumb afterwards but the look the prosecutor gave him... "All I said was that she was the Prose-cutest~" he joked.

"And neither I nor Saejima thought you were going to survive the night. If looks could kill you would have been a greasy smear before they got the cuffs on you."

"Oh, I wasn't gonna die that night. She seemed like the kinda woman who wants to make you suffer for it, make you regret ever being born, beg on your knees and _then_ she kills ya, you know, once she's got her kicks out of it. But that's beside the point." Majima rambled on to an increaingly confused Dojima.

"I don't even want to know where you got all that from," He said, shaking his head as he walked over to the desk "But what I do want to know is why I hear that you spent all of Friday goofing around turning one of the clan's few remaining revenue streams into a play-park for an afternoon and not answering my calls." The Tojo Clan chairman said, his tone dropping as he looked Majima in the eye.

Goro sighed deeply as he stubbed out his cigarette quickly, it was going to be one of those meetings "Casual Fridays are a thing in the States, thought I give it a whirl to boost morale. For some reason screaming that you're gonna murder all your workers ain't the motivational tool it used to be." Majima commented.

"Goro, you know I respect who you are and what you've done, to the point I let you talk to me in ways that previous chairmen would have had you executed for..." Dojima sighed.

"And I appreciate the freedom to be the Mad Dog you know and love, and do my best in turn, what's the problem?" Majima asked the exasperated chairman.

"That ever since the funeral you haven't been providing your best," Dojima said sharply, glaring down at Goro Majima "It hurt us all, I knew Kiryu-"

"Don't talk about him in the past tense!" Majima snapped, slamming his hands on the table as he stood up, his face snarled in anger as he pressed his forehead into Daigo's, daring the chairman to do something about his unruly second in command.

"...You dare tell me how to talk about Kiryu?" His voice was soft and steady, the first snowflakes before a side of a mountain comes crashing down in an avalanche.

"...Tch..." Goro let out, slumping back down as he stared at the desk, trying to avoid looking Daigo in the eye, even the Mad Dog knew he'd crossed a line there "So what do you want me to do, boss? Whip the gang back into shape, get another tower block started up?"

"I want you to start talking to us more. I'm worried about how you only keep in contact to send the payments now, Saejima's just worried. If we're going to rebuild the Tojo Clan and push back against the Yomei, we can't afford to be divided like we were before. That means you have to stay in contact and answer your phone, and not just because the boss is telling you." Daigo concluded, watching impassively as Majima slowly stood up with a big sigh.

"Alright, if that's the way you wanna play it, where's Saejima now?" Majima asked.

"Outside, with the rest of the guard, why?"

"If you wanna talk so much Daigo, we can talk but forget doing that in a dingy little office, you're the big shot Chairman here you deserve better than this."

"What are you planning Goro?" Dojima asked, suddenly full of suspicion.

"OY! TAIGA!" Majima yelled, poking his head through the unlocked office door, smiling when a rough-looking giant in clothes too bulky for the hot weather suddenly perked up "DOJIMA-HAN SAYS HE WANTS TO DO KARAOKE WITH US SO YOU CAN'T SAY NO THIS TIME BECAUSE ITS THE BOSS ASKING!" he declared as both Taiga Saejima and Daigo Dojima's eyes went wide "Come on, some good old bonding time between the three big shots! You're a bondage person, aren't you Dojima? 'Course you are, could tell from the moment you took over. " He rambled, slinging an arm over Daigo's shoulder as he led him out to meet with Saejima and onwards to a fun filled day whether they liked it or not.

* * *

The wails of 80s rock as sung by people who have no right to sing as badly as they were doing bounced off the walls, despite the lack of singing ability the atmosphere was still fun as the onlookers cheered support from their seats. They should have organised a day like this ages ago.

"_**BREAKING THE LAW~"**_

"_**BREAKING THE RULES~"**_

It was too bad that there were only a few days Ren could stay in Tokyo outside of the summer break.

The Phantom Thieves cheered their ambitious if rubbish bad-boy duet of Ryuji and Ren as they whipped off their shirts while the guitars played out, allowing them to flop on the shared couch with a fit of laughter "Missed you Ren-Ren." The blond cooed, ruffling the already ruffled mop that was the leader's hair.

"Knock it off, you're making Makoto jealous and giving Futaba ideas." Ren chuckled, pushing Ryuji away gently, noticing the small hiss the blond made as he pressed his palm into his chest "You alright?"

"Yeah, just a week of working on a construction site deciding it ain't screwed up enough of a week yet." Ryuji waved off.

"Just be glad it's over and we never have to worry about one-eyed gangsters being involved in our lives." Ann suggested, sipping soda through a straw.

"I guess," he sighed "Could have gone worse, he was cool about most things. You know, for a guy who's like A-Okay with biting your head off if you put a can in the garbage instead of the recycling. Anyway, who's got next song?" He asked around as Haru jumped up to volunteer, all the Thieves oblivious to the situation in the bar lobby.

"Whadda ya mean the VIP room's taken?" Majima demanded as Saejima and Daigo kept a few steps back with put-upon expressions "We own this bar you dipshit! Wait, no... do we? We own the offices above this bar you dipshit! We could have had noise complaints on your ass for years! You owe us!" The Mad Dog ranted while Daigo took a deep breath.

"Well this was a bust, we should be taking our business elsewhere-" He began in an irritated tone as the poor clerk tried to explain that a bunch of teenagers had called dibs for the past two months.

"Bunch of brats, I'll deal with this!" Majima declared as he stormed off towards the VIP room.

"Goddammit..." Daigo groaned as he and Saejima followed in order to stop the Mad Dog from terrifying a bunch of kids who committed the crime of planning fun days out in advance.

"Alright kids, the party's o-" Majima announced, bursting through the doors with a malicious intent as he looked over just who was in what he considered to be his spot, a mood that dropped quickly as the Phantom Thieves looked at the sudden intruder with shock "Sakamoto-chan?"

"Uh... no, it's not me?" Ryuji proposed when his mouth started working again, even if his brain hadn't.

"It is you!" Majima declared with a manic smile as he walked in with open arms "We missed you on the site yesterday. After showing me up like you did, we worked really hard on making the course this time impossible for real and then you don't turn up! Such a shame." He said, either not noticing or not caring about how the shocked faces had turned to determined glares.

"Goro, what the heck are you playing at?" Saejima demanded as he blocked out the light from the hallway, the big man looming in the doorway with Daigo, glaring at the one eyed man.

"Right, right. Sorry, formalities. Got to do introductions first, what am I thinking? Ann Takamaki, Ryuji Sakamoto and the rest of you guys: meet Taiga Saejima and Daigo Dojima, my blood brother and my boss respectively. Dojima, Saejima: meet Takamaki-chan and Sakamoto-chan and the rest of their buddies. She's gonna be the new poster girl for Majima Construction," he said, jumping up and pointing to the people he was indicating "And he's a Phantom Thief."

* * *

**A/N: The week isn't stopping just yet baby! Time for the rest of the Tojo Clan to get involved. Also, Yakuza 6 spoilers so... whoops to anyone who hadn't finished that game.**


	8. Chapter 8 - Chequered Past

This was bad, very bad. On a list of bad things that had happened this was easily in the top ten. Well, maybe it would be a struggle to fit it in but it was still very bad! A Yakuza boss with his buddies, who were also a Yakuza boss and a Yakuza boss' boss, and it wasn't just the fact he'd told them Ryuji was a Phantom Thief, its that Majima had let slip that he knew who Ryuji was in front of all the other Phantom Thieves!

There wasn't enough time to think of something, the blond had to defuse the situation now. For that he only had his instincts to rely on. "Say whaaaat?" He called out unconvincingly. Lesson Learned: Instincts Bad.

He could feel the glares slowly turn towards him as the seconds ticked away, although the two men who the Mad Dog introduced were looking on in... confusion? "The who?" Saejima asked after a silence that had gone beyond being awkward.

"What?" Majima barked "Don't you guys remember? Last year with the whole deal, the fat asshole giving himself up before the cops could even get close, Kaneshiro!" the Mad Dog tried to explain, getting no reaction that signified recognition from either Daigo or Taiga.

"So what's your point?" The larger man asked, folding his arms, unimpressed by his blood brother's assertions.

"Phantom Thieves! Changing peoples hearts, making them confess their crimes like that creepy volleyball guy, the old art man who was stealing work from his students and letting them just die of whatever it is artists die of." Majima continued, gesticulating wildly at Ryuji.

"The clap?" Suggested Saejima, shocking Yusuke as he suddenly tried to work out whether or not applauding the earlier karaoke attempts had inadvertently shortened his lifestyle, and whether there was an alternative. Perhaps jazz hands would be appropriate.

"Taiga, this is a conversation best saved for outside. Now," Daigo sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as the big man moved to chase Majima out of the room "Sorry for the intrusion." He apologized, bowing to the Phantom Thieves as he left, closing the door as Saejima managed to restrain the Mad Dog long enough for them to leave the building leaving Ryuji to wilt under the glare of his friends.

"Ryuji, what the shit?" Ann yelled when the coast was clear.

The blond nervously scratched his head "Well you see..." he began "Oh right, I didn't say that the posters came out. They cropped out my face which was great because from one of the angles it really looks like you're stepping on my dick and really neither of us need that kinda hassle right now..."

"RYUJI!" Snapped Ann as she tried to channel her rage into making it not look like she was blushing, just mad as all hell.

"It's not my fault! I mean it this time!" Ryuji squeaked, trying to back away into the cushions "It wasn't as if I was constantly on the site telling everyone, he just figured it out and thought it was super cool and now he wants to train me thinking I can be this weird hybrid criminal super-badass!" He frantically explained.

* * *

Meanwhile, Saejima had finished pinning Majima to the wall and was beginning to ask questions. Questions such as "Majima, what the shit?"

"What do mean 'What the shit?' I told you already, he's a Phantom Thief! Do you guys seriously not remember?" Majima snarled back.

"Remember what?" Saejima asked, releasing his grip and letting Majima drop down to his feet.

"When Kaneshiro turned himself in, it was after he'd got calling cards from a group calling themselves the Phantom Thieves. Couple weeks later he confesses to pretty much everything and strolls into a jail cell. Same thing happened to Shido, you know. The guy who bailed us out? Only instead of getting a postcard he got a full 5 minutes on every screen in downtown Tokyo telling him how bad he fucked up." Majima explained to the still confused Tojo clan brass.

"So what your saying," Daigo began trying to pace himself and slow down the ranting mad dog "Is that you took on for your construction firm someone who has managed to force both an Oyabun and a politician who had just been elected Prime Minister into handing themselves other to the authorities? And he's a punk kid who dyes his hair?!" He said, his own voice starting breaking away from the calm, collected, serious boss tone.

"Hey, how did you know it was dyed?" Majima asked innocently

"THATS NOT THE POINT MAJIMA!" Daigo yelled, stomping his foot on the floor before trying to regain his composure "What's happening between you an him?"

* * *

"Wait, what's going on?" Makoto asked, trying to stay glaring at Ryuji and his trouble making mouth "You're being trained by him?"

"Didn't we say not to do anything stupid?" Futaba asked with a groan.

"You said _try_ not to," Ryuji said defensively "Okay, so after that I get through the day on the site not talking to anyone and feeling bummed out, then I hear this lady screaming that she got her purse stolen. Well I found the guy... and he found me."

"Oh Ryuji..." Sighed Haru, shaking her head as she started to piece what happened before the blond said it.

"I got into a fight with him and he was taller than the guy in the jacket was. That's why I got the sore spot, he kicked me so hard it was like he was trying to kick me in the back but was too lazy to walk around so kicked through the rest of me," Ryuji explained "I was fine! I got up afterwards!" He waved off, noting the suddenly concerned expressions "And then Majima stepped and booted the guy in the jaw."

* * *

"So he ends up picking a fight with a purse snatcher, only the crook's taller than even you. I step in to save his ass, take him back to get patched up so the school doesn't bust my ass for child endagerment, then we talk." Majima explained

"About what?" Saejima asked, a lot more interested in the story than the fuming Daigo.

"About stuff, what he knew about me being the Mad Dog, what I knew about him getting hurt by that creep of a teacher, stuff like that. Trying to clear the air 'cause he is shit at keeping secrets."

"And he told you he was this Phantom Thief?"

"Not really: figured it out, asked him about it, and he did the worst denial since I tried to pretend I wasn't a one eyed-thug," Majima answered with a shrug "You seriously don't remember the Phantom Thieves?"

Now it was Saejima's time to grimace under the questioning "Not really?" He said, unsure even as he spoke "I mean, it seems about right. Everything you said about them going after Kaneshiro and Shido is crazy, but... I can't help but nod along with it. Its as though something's trying to stop me remembering it."

"Maybe it's the crappy vodka you drank the night the blob confessed. Just thinking about them conjures up the memory of puking out your own kidneys so your brain just goes nooope." Majima joked.

"No," Saejima chuckled "I remember that bit."

"I try not to..." Daigo groaned, trying to calm down.

"So anyway, here's this blond punk. Fresh from getting his ass kicked, although he got a few shots in, but he's telling me he used to be the guy we would crap our pants about. So I'm thinking, there's no way we could be afraid of him and not look like the biggest bunch of dweebs this side of the pacific. So I thought 'What if I made him a real threat?' and started putting him through his paces." Majima continued.

* * *

"So after he saves me, he asks why I'm acting like a stupid idiot all of a sudden," Ryuji begins, earning a cough from Ren's bag that was certainly a certain cat questioning the 'all of a sudden' part of the story "He knew about Kamoshida, I told him about Kaneshiro and he knows that I know he's Yakuza."

"That doesn't explain how he knows about the Phantom Thieves, or why he decided to train you." Makoto pointed out, trying not to let envy seep into her voice. Saved and trained by a chivalrous Yakuza with a heart of gold despite being on the wrong side of the law? It was like a movie come true, and Ryuji of all people was living it!

"Well, he pieced together from everything that I had connections to all three, and that they all got calling cards. Then he accuses me and you know I'm shit at lying..." He said, letting the unsaid remain so.

"It's alright. Same happened to me." Ren admitted as everyone in the VIP snapped towards him.

"For real?!" Ryuji asked, glad for the distraction.

"Who?" Ann asked, stunned that Ryuji wasn't the only intelligence leak.

"Well the owner of the gun store, the doctor, the drunk reporter, this fortune teller in the red light district, Miss Kawakami..."

"MISS KAWAKAMI KNOWS!?" Ann yelled.

"Oh, also a few other people we helped out, but they swore themselves to secrecy so it's fine," the leader of the Phantom Thieves dismissed in the face of shock. "We uh... weren't the smartest about who we helped out."

"But I got helped out, I didn't help him out." Ryuji confessed.

"Yeah, that's where this kinda gets confusing. So what happened after he figured out you were a phantom thief but before he decides to train you?" Ren asked gently.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Yeah, nothing. He realises I'm a Phantom Thief then all of a sudden he thinks he's gonna training montage me into being a badass. He said it's 'cause apparently we scared the crap out of the Yakuza and he wants me to be someone worthy of being scared about... I don't get it either."

* * *

"Well that explains you messing around on Friday," Saejima conceeded as Majima explained the training regime he'd tried to establish "But that sounds a lot to put a kid through."

"Taiga, you can't be serious!" Daigo complained "He just established that he's decided to train someone who was already a threat to the Tojo clan and your first thought was to quibble about the intensity of it all?" He asked, feeling as though he was the only vestige of sanity remaining in the clan.

"That's the best part!" Majima exclaimed with the biggest grin "I thought he was gonna collapse or give up, but the kid aced it! He's got stamina that I had in the 80s and he can take hits for days. Even I got levelled when I first fought a guy calling himself Mr Shakedown but this kid's able to get right in both his and _my_ faces. Look at this," he pointed, pulling back his fringe to reveal the black bruise on his forehead "He headbutted me. He knew who the heck I was, was getting whacked by me, then he pushed me over the desk and headbutted me!" the mad dog let out, speaking as though he was trying to explain his new favourite game and why it was awesome.

"Oh... I get it." Saejima sighed, turning away and nodding to Daigo, signalling that for them it was time to leave.

"Get what?" Majima asked, confused by the sudden departure.

"You think he's gonna be another Kiryu, don't you?" Daigo asked pointedly "I've heard of replacement Goldfishes but a replacement Dragon is something else."

"What the hell are you two talking about!?" Majima snapped.

"Whatever these Phantom Thieves are, our best action is to tighten internal discipline about what acts are permitted to avoid attracting attention," Daigo said calmly "Career week is over Majima. You are to cease your association with these teenagers for the good of the clan. If this Ryuji wants to join the Tojo clan that would be one thing, but if he doesn't..."

"Then you leave him alone. For your sake." Saejima finished as the two walked back to the limousine, letting Majima stand there in the corridor alone.

* * *

"Sorry for yelling, Ryu." Ann apologised as the Phantom Thieves left the VIP room, the fun of the day swiftly drained to the point they needed to find something else to perk their spirits back up. Laser tag sounded fun.

"It's fine," Ryuji sighed, leaning on Haru's shoulder for support, both physical and emotional as the brown haired heiress held him close "I know I'm an idiot."

"It's fine, by the looks of things the other guys didn't remember about last year at all. Must've been something that happened when the metaverse got wiped." Futaba said reassuringly.

"And Majima seemed okay for a criminal, if a little crazy." Makoto joined in.

"He was at the photoshoot without being creepy, even the camera guy's a creep sometimes so that's gotta count for something." Ann added.

"So relax Ryuji, nothing will come of this so the worst thing that'll happen is gonna be going back to school." Yusuke concluded, putting the clapping thing out of his mind.

"Why'd ya remind me about that?" Ryuji groaned, slumping further over Haru's shoulders to the point he was practically using her incredibly fluffy hair as a pillow.

"It's fine, you're gonna be fine, we're gonna be fine and you're probably never gonna see Majima-" Ren began before the law of narratives cut him off. Goro Majima was there in the corridor, leaning up against the wall and staring at the ceiling.

"Oh... hey," He called out half-halfheartedly as he noticed the gang approaching "Well, it was nice meeting you all, the others already left so...sorry for messing up with the secret thing." The Mad Dog sighed, trying not to make eye contact as the Phantom Thieves made their awkward exit past him.

It was only by the time they got to the lobby to check out did Haru speak up "Oh!" She yelped, patting herself down dramatically "I think I left something back in the room, one moment please." She said, speeding back around the corner before Ryuji could even say anything like 'I'll get it.'

Majima was quick to notice the brown haired young woman staring a hole in him "Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to stare kid?" He asked in a deflated tone as Haru defiantly approached.

"Mr Goro Majima," she began "Why did you start to train Ryuji?" she asked, eyeing up the Tojo Clan captain.

"Why?" Majima repeated, cocking his eyebrow "'Cause it was something to do, why do you care?"

"Because you've been forbidden to continue I'm assuming." Haru deduced.

"What happened to your generation that makes people so good at figuring others out?" Majima asked the ceiling "Okay, so I got barred from beating blondie back there black and blue for funsies. What's the point?"

"Because if you were just trying to hurt him, I would have to respond in kind." Haru answered politely, but the words got Majima staring right at her.

"Really now? And how would you plan on doing that..?" He asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Well I could get my axe, although I would have to call one of the servants of my estate to collect it before I reduce you to something suitable for turning into mulch." the heiress replied with a sweet smile, earning a laugh from the Mad Dog.

"Oh wow, I'm terrified! What are you, your boyfriends super-rich Phantom Thief buddy?" Majima chuckled before seeing Haru's face "...you totally are, aren't you." He realized, his smile dropping

"All of us are, although I believe he is only _my_ boyfriend." Haru explained.

"Well shit. So Miss Phantom Thief, what can a man barred from interacting with you do for you?" He sighed, this Sunday was getting longer by the minute.

"Like I said, although he has come home covered in bruises, I do not think you're trying to hurt him out of maliciousness, and after the day of training he did seem to have more energy and enthusiasm then before. So your explanation of trying to train him seems legitimate, if still strange."

"And your point is?" Majima asked.

"Would you like to continue to do so? I'm sure if you asked, he would say yes, provided it didn't clash with anything else he was doing." Haru offered, taking Majima by surprise.

"Didn't you hear me earlier? The clan's said no, and I can't justify spending time with a bunch of kids now that the school isn't asking me to." Majima dismissed.

"Perhaps not, but would they forbid the CEO of Majima Construction from having lengthy discussions about potentially building the heir to the Okumura fortune a new cafe?" She asked, smiles growing on both their faces "When by co-incidence her boyfriend just so happens to be visiting after he's done with his school day, in a place large enough for multiple disciplines of combat training?"

"Goro Majima, Majima Construction at your services!" Majima declared, holding out a hand for Haru to shake "Pleasure doing business with the rich and... well, rich."

"Haru Okumura, a pleasure to meet you."


	9. Chapter 9 - New Career

It was Monday morning and Majima Construction was running as smoothly as a gravel milkshake, but that wasn't about to keep it's CEO from smiling even more than usual "Keep it up fellas! Literally. This place has to stay standing when we're done!" He called out through the megaphone in an ear piercing shriek as he plotted out the afternoon activities. Oh Daigo would be so approving of getting into the good graces of one of the richest teenagers in Tokyo, the Kirijo Group could wait for their new office building, he was moving up in the world!

Well, no, he wasn't. What he was doing was finding new and inventive ways to goof off, but he was going to be goofing off with richer people instead of just his goons, minions and henchmen, it was tempting to take the whole day off for it but he was going to have to wait, loading up the company van with training equipment and weapons for the big day.

"So... when are we supposed to be finished, boss?" Hiroki asked tentatively as Majima threw another bag in the back.

"Huh?" The Mad Dog let out, slamming the van door behind him.

"It's just I heard you talking to the Chairman about a new client so I was wondering if you want us to work faster here or..." the man on the spot mumbled, leaving the 'We've been here for months and done dick-all besides looking busy' go unsaid.

"Nah, it's fine. Work at your own pace, it's pretty much a tax dodge for both us and the clients now." Majima waved off before strolling back to his office and picking up the ringing phone. "Okumura-chan! Please tell me I'm not gonna have problems with security tonight. Some reason every time I show up at anywhere fancy they try to turn me away, emphasis on _try_." He said, earning a surprisingly innocent sounding giggle from the other end of the line.

* * *

For Ryuji, the day had gone about as well as a Monday normally goes, as in as pleasant as trying to drink a gravel milkshake. Who was ready for maths and extra maths on a Monday morning? Nobody! The human brain couldn't process numbers bigger than eleven until after lunch, but it had to be that and history for the days lessons, as such the blond was half asleep and begging to do something active. He was practically sleepwalking to the gym before his phone buzzed in his pants, a one line private message that was enough to powerbomb his plans for the rest of the day into the dirt and forced him to frantically dial his mother. "Hey mom," he began, trying to keep his voice under control "I'm gonna go straight to Haru's place so I don't know when I'll be back," he explained before the reply caused his face to turn deep crimson "Mom!" he squeaked loudly enough for everyone on the train to hear "I'll... see you sometime. Take care... love you."

It took a while for the blond to reach the Okumura residence, what with the fancy places being too far away from decent public transportation, even in Tokyo, but Ryuji wasn't going to let a little jogging get in the way of his hype. There weren't many reasons to be called out to here specifically and in his mind they were all fantastic. Ignoring the disapproving looks he received from the cleaning staff as he confidently stomped through the door, the blond was all smiles... until he wasn't. "SAKAMOTO-CHAN!" Came the high-pitched yell of doom as Majima Goro jumped out from behind a pillar in an empty hallway, landing in front of the blond with a manic grin.

"W-what the hell?!" Ryuji demanded, skidding to a stop on the shiny floor, scrambling for something to grab and fight with.

"You think you could escape me that easily? I said I was gonna train ya, and that takes more than one day, even for the best of the best!" Majima declared, pointing a gloved finger at his would-be student "Good instincts to grab something," he added before looking past him to the wooden stand near the door "But you missed the umbrellas. Those things can be really vicious. Especially if you pull out one of the spokes"

"I'm not messing up someone else's stuff just to hit someone!" Ryuji snarled defensively "And what the hell are you even doing here!?" He added, remembering the bigger issue at play.

"Isn't it obvious Sakamoto-chan? I'm here to tr-" Majima repeated before the enraged blond cut him off.

"I got that the first time. I meant what the hell are you doing in my friend's house! How'd you get in?" Ryuji had considered the security team here pretty jumpy about who they let in, the first time he had tried to show up he'd gotten sprayed with the gardener's hose. Someone like Majima would have drawn sniper fire the moment he walked down the street.

"Eh? Does that really matter?" Majima asked.

"YES!" Was the blunt reply.

"Fine," the one eyed-Yakuza sighed as he turned around calling out "Oi, Okumura-chan! Care to explain things to your-" Majima drawled before he heard footsteps start up on the marbled floor. Ryuji had glided on the slightly slippery surface for a brief boost of speed before he ducked low and threw himself into the Tojo Captain, his shoulder digging into Majima's spine as he tackled him down to the ground. "-umph! ...and in the back too...not bad..." the Mad Dog grunted, fumbling for something around his belt.

"What did you do to Haru?" Ryuji demanded, grabbing the older man by shoulder to flip him over, ready to pummel some answers out of him, only to see a flash of metal between him and the smiling Majima.

"And then ya screw it up at the end." He taunted, letting the knife dance in front of Ryuji's eyes before throwing it aside.

"Wow Ryuji! That was so cool!" Haru cheered, stepping out from her hidey-hole behind the pillar opposite from Majima's.

"Haru?" Ryuji yelped as he was left sitting on the floor, Majima sliding out from underneath him "What's going on?" he asked, the adrenaline that drove him to tackle the hardened Yakuza slowly fading into pure confusion.

"I'm here 'cause your girlfriend asked me." Majima explained, sitting up against the wall and reaching for a pack of cigarettes before a polite cough made him decide against a smoke break.

"No- no way..." Ryuji groaned, staggering back to his feet "Seriously?" He asked, turning to Haru with a dejected expression.

"I'm sorry, I should have said something, I'd thought it'd be a nice surprise.," Haru confessed, turning puppy-dog eyes of her own on the blond "You looked as though you had fun on Friday..."

"F-fun?" Ryuji stuttered. It wasn't the word he had used at the time, being the guinea-pig for Goro Majima's training methods was more frightening than anything but on the other hand it had been a year since the last thing that really got his blood pumping the way it had sneaking and fighting through Palaces. Despite how much everything ached and how many bruises he got from the one on one tuition session, he was still feeling amped up from it over the weekend. Not to mention if he was really going to learn how to swing a bat like a nunchuck, he'd have to learn it from the only other person who seemed to be doing it. Otherwise it'd be going straight through a window and onto someone's dog.

"I saw the quick smirk you got before I pulled a knife, thinking you had one over on little old me," Majima teased as he stood up "Its one of life's oldest pleasures, and one of the few I can mention in the presence of minors." he chuckled.

"And he's promised to not go to far with training us-" Haru began.

"If I want to leave this place alive..." Majima finished, his voice trailing off as his brain picked up one niggling little detail.

"US!?" He and Ryuji yelled in unison.

"Oh... didn't I say that bit earlier?" Haru asked innocently.

"Whoa whoa whoa! This wasn't part of the deal!" Majima yelled as Ryuji stood open mouthed in stunned confusion.

"Well, I thought the best way to keep an eye on you would be to train with you myself, so I can see first hand how rough you're being with your students," Haru explained her reasoning "Unless you think it's not appropriate for a lady?" She asked with an added edge to her voice, just a hint that there was a right way and a very wrong way to answer.

"Well... uh..." Majima stumbled over his words, weighing up how much he wanted to say as his normal grin stayed away. Haru was every bit the Phantom Thief that Ryuji was and while she'd opted for the more practical exercise program of gardening instead of sports training, it wasn't as though she was going to be physically incapable of going through the Mad Dog's soon to be patented self-defence regime, but there were some line that he didn't like crossing. "It's gonna involve me hitting ya, a lot. Blondie over there knows it, and some of us aren't exactly fine with that." he said, admittedly weekly. There were more raw nerves to touch than just Kiryu.

"I'm fine with it!" Haru insisted "And Ryuji's there to protect me, just like I'm there to protect him."

"Uh... yeah?" Ryuji mumbled, still trying to process what was happening but feeling as though he should try and be supportive here.

Taking a deep sigh as he tried to better focus his thoughts, Majima tried to think of the best way around this. Haru was determined and this seemed as though it was gonna be a deal breaker. Did he really want to burden them with what happened 25 years ago? They might kick him out there and then if they found out what happened between him and Mirei Park. "Don't get me wrong, Okumura-chan," he began "It's not about you being tough enough for it or not. If you went through half the crap Ryuji did that's more than most..."

"But..." Haru added, seeing where this discussion was going.

"It's about me not being comfortable with it, alright. Not a 'women are delicate flowers' thing, it's a 'I don't like to hit women because of me' thing." Majima admitted in a harsh tone.

"What if she's got a mask and a sword?" Ryuji suggested, finally getting his tongue working again.

"Wha?"

"You know, like if you don't see her face and she's swinging a sword at you so you don't have time to be uncomfortable, 'cause it'd make you really uncomfortable if you didn't do something about the sword heading your way." The blond expanded.

"Did you listen to a damn thing?" Majima asked "It ain't a case of not thinking about it when it happens."

"Then if its a case of what happens after, seeing her be all 'man that was cool!' and stuff might make it better?" Ryuji persisted.

Goro Majima sighed, it was clear these kids weren't going to budge on this "Sakamoto-chan, you were shocked as I was that she's jumping on this crazy train. Heck, _you_ didn't want to get back on yourself!"

"So that makes it easy," the blonde said walking over to Haru "You train both of us or you train none of us. Your call old man."

"It's 'neither of us'." Haru corrected in a whisper.

"That's what I said." Ryuji whispered back, earning a roll of the eyes.

"...Alright," Majima sighed "If its doing this with girls as well as guys or going back to work, I know what I'm doing," he said, strolling through the hall with his hands in his pockets "What?" He asked, catching Ryuji and Haru's expressions "If I'm training the both of ya up, I'm gonna need more equipment than what I brought." He explained, receiving an ear piecing shriek of joy as the brunette rushed him.

"Thank you Majima-san!" She cheered, wrapping her arms around him tightly.

"So what's first for fighting here?" Ryuji asked as Majima continued to shuffle to the door, dragging Haru along with him.

"What you said: masks and swords. By the end of the month if you can't catch a katana with your teeth then I'm calling it a wasted month!"Majima declared as he tried to pry away the young woman.

* * *

**A/N: As I'm going to be travelling next weekend, if this isn't updated by Saturday mid-afternoon (British Time) then there's going to be a big delay as I try to hide from work in another country. Just a heads up in case people start wondering why the schedule slips.**


	10. Chapter 10 - One Year Ago

**A/N: Major, MAJOR Yakuza 6 spoilers. Skip the flashback part if you don't want to be spoiled. **

* * *

_**One year ago**_

It wasn't the first time Goro Majima had been in jail or prison, his cell was actually slightly nicer than the first one he'd ever been in. It just had the dishonour of being his first time in a cell that was actually locked. Still, at least this one had a bed, a shitty bed, a bed that was probably crawling with insects that eat ink and were gonna mess up his tattoo, but a bed nonetheless. Somewhere to lie and attempt to not think about how things went so wrong.

Maybe he shouldn't have taunted the prosecutor, but by the time he and Daigo got to the courtroom they knew they were sleeping in prison uniforms for a long time if they were lucky and didn't get shanked in the showers by a hitman sent by the Omi Alliance or even the current heads of the Tojo Clan, Sugai or Someya. They were the kind of jackasses to make sure there was no chance that their rule was going to be challenged.

"Oi, Majima." Was the hoarse call as a truncheon rapped on the bars, waking the one-eyed prisoner from his semi-slumber.

"We got actual names now?" Majima asked, rolling off the bed and standing up straight "When did I stop being "Inmate" or a number?"

"Don't push your luck." The warden growled, a heavyset man with a serious lack of humour. Even Saejima could joke more than this guy.

"So we're doing names! I never caught yours, Officer-han~" Majima crooned, earning a growl of annoyance before the lock clicked open "Huh?"

"Follow me, and don't try anything funny." The warden instructed, starting to walk away from the now open cell. At first Majima was thinking that this was probably the first attempt at a hit coming for him: prison guards suddenly using names, and they were allowed to carry weapons in here. Well... this was going to be interesting.

And interesting it was, he was led into a small room containing a table, possibly an old interrogation room that had been converted into an office. Lukewarm cups of coffee rested on stained newspapers while Goro Majima was shoved in to meet the others: Daigo Dojima and Taiga Saejima "The fuck?" He let out on seeing the fellow incarcerated Yakuza "Saejima? I didn't think you even in this prison!"

"I wasn't," Saejima explained, leaving back on a cheap plastic chair "They tossed me in here yesterday and now the gang's back together. Only no-one knows what we're supposed to be doing here."

"If I were to guess," Daigo began, not bothering to look up from his outdated newspaper "We're about to be given an offer we can't refuse."

"What makes you say that, boss?"

"We're out of cells, in a shitty office and no-one's pulled a gun. Yet." Daigo explained as the seconds ticked away and the coffee cooled further. A lot of nothing seemed to be what they were supposed to be doing, wasn't there a philosipher who said hell was being stuck in a room with all your friends? Maybe that's what they were trying to do, break up the Tojo clan camraderie by just letting time get under their skins "Does anyone have a pencil? No-one did the crossword on this one." Daigo asked, having tossed five different papers across the room.

"I'm afraid pencils were banned in this facility after an unfortunate incident involving someone losing an eye," came a new voice. A younger voice "Surely you would be able to understand, your compatriot doesn't have one left to lose." The tone was polite yet slightly mocking, a teenager who believed he was the smartest person in the room, and his appearance only solidified that image. A buttoned up grey suit, dark trousers, gloved hands holding a silver briefcase, he could have passed for any shady government type except for the fact that he was a teenager. Brown hair flowed over smooth skin as he calmly sat down opposite the hardened Yakuza without a single care about being in the same room as a self-confessed mass-murderer, the official chairman of one of the largest Yakuza groups in the country, and Goro Majima.

"The hell?" Saejima cursed out, seeing this kid walk into the lion's den "Who are you?"

"Goro Akechi, Ace Detective. And your collective last hope." Akechi introduced, sliding the briefcase onto the table.

"Oh I get it," Majima declared "This is part of rehabilitation. They put us in the room with an annoying brat, and if we don't shove his head through the two way mirror we're making progress." he announced, earning a laugh from the young detective.

"Unfortunately, no. Merely tolerating my presence is insufficient for an early release," Akechi said with a smile as Daigo leaned forward.

"Not who I was expecting to deal with, but I assume that's what you're here for," Dojima concluded, clasping his hands on the table "What's your offer?"

"Whoa, whoa!" Majima waved "You're really gonna take this little shit seriously?"

"Yeah," Saejima grunted in support of his blood brother "That 'Ace Detective' stuff is probably bullshit."

"It's real. He has a TV show. Although he's the second person to be named the Detective Prince, his credentials are still legitimate." Daigo said calmly, hoping that the question of whether he watched the trash would go unsaid.

"Ah, a fan?" asked Akechi, his eyes brightening up slightly

"Someone who's just aware of the twenty first century," Daigo growled, feeling the inquisitive stares from both Majima and Saejima "So what's the price for our freedom?" he asked again.

"Straight to the point. Fair enough," Akechi sighed "For the purposes of this discussion, I represent a high ranking government official, it is not important which one," the detective added, holding up a hand "Who wishes to have a renewed relationship with the Tojo clan, returning to the tradition of assisting in the cause of peace and stability when the law cannot."

"If you haven't noticed, we're rotting in prison, try Sugai if you want an arrangement." Saejima dismissed.

"Fortunately for everyone here, that is not an option." the young detective said softly.

"He's dead." Daigo concluded.

"Indeed. Officially and unofficially it was a suicide. As was the fate of his subordinate, quite convenient. Less paperwork for us and a return to form for you. Should you leave this prison that is."

"So the Tojo clan is currently leaderless, and your... client... is willing to let us out to restore order to the underworld," Daigo summarized keeping a level tone "So what if we refuse?"

"Excuse me?" Akechi replied, a flicker of confusion briefly showing.

"What if we say no? This is an election year and current officials don't always stay current," the chairman elaborated "If we cut a deal with someone who suddenly becomes the punching bag of the month, that doesn't bode well for us."

"Then you'll stay in here until your sentences are finished and would have mildly annoyed one of the most powerful men in Japan, but seeing as it was done out of caution I doubt there will be too many consequences..." Akechi said, leaving an edge in his voice that made Daigo's eyes narrow "Although missing the funeral would be considered a punishment in of itself."

"For Sugai? I'm not the dancing type." Saejima spoke out, earning a chuckle from Majima as he imagined the giant tap dancing on a grave.

"I meant Kiryu's." Was all Goro Akechi needed to say as the three Yakuza slammed their hands on the table: Daigo's calm cracking like an egg, Saejima hitting the metal with enough force to drive holes in the floor as Majima tried to sprint around to get in the face of the smug detective.

"This another 'suicide'?" Daigo demanded, his heart racing.

"No, I'm afraid Kazuma Kiryu died from his injuries following a shoot out. I gather this must be difficult for you." He said, knowing full well beforehand how the three would react.

"Who!?" Majima yelled.

"An organisation in Hiroshima, the Yomei Alliance," Akechi explained, ignoring the one-eyed man yelling barely an inch away from his face "After all the ways between the underworld in Osaka and Tokyo, they've carved out a significant niche for themselves... among other things, they're not to be taken lightly."

"You got proof?" Saejima asked after a deep breath "We've been locked away and out of the loop. If you're feeding us a bunch of bullshit-"

"Ah, I'd thought it would come to this," Akechi declared, clicking open the suitcase and pulling out a sheet of paper "I would think this should cover it." he said, handing it over to the big man.

Taiga's eyes ran over the sheet as his shoulders slumped, every word driving a nail in a coffin "Shit..." he cussed in a whisper "He really is... it's legit." he said before Majima snatched the paper out of his hand, clutching so tightly that he was likely to tear it apart.

"Death certificate and all..." Majima said, no trace of a Kansai accent in his voice as he passed the sheet down to Daigo.

"If you need a moment, I understand but my time is very important here." Akechi said, tapping his fingers along the table.

"So how do you plan to release us?" Daigo said, trying not to let his voice crack as he passed the certificate back, his hands balling into fists.

"Technicalities, missing evidence, witnesses who can't tell the same story twice. There are ways to overturn a guilty verdict after the fact, especially with such, aha, rushed prosecution. Although Saejima is a different case there are means for him as well. Everything will be above board with a clean slate," Akechi waved off "A minor detail that won't even hit the news cycle."

"Which you plan to stain the moment we get out." Majima growled

"Not immediately. But sometimes we will require gentlemen such as yourselves to remove the razorblades from the candyfloss that is life," the detective said wistfully "It's not to different from previous arrangements."

After a brief pause, Daigo stood up from his seat and casually walked over to the detective, announcing that "We're in." without even looking for a nod from Saejima or Majima.

"Wonderful! Now if you can just sign these..." Akechi said with a wide smile as he reached within the briefcase "Oh wait, no pencils allowed in the facility." he laughed.

* * *

_**Present Day**_

It had been a while since that meeting burdened his memory, but as Daigo Dojima tried to get comfortable in his penthouse apartment looking over Kamurocho, he couldn't help but think back to the expression Goro Akechi had when facing two of the scariest individuals the Tojo Clan had to offer and himself. The pure lack of fear in his eyes as the young detective explained what he needed them to do, and the similar expression he caught behind the glasses of one of the kids in the karaoke bar. Sure, the rest of the kids looked startled, scared or just confused but there was only one who was sitting back smugly without a care in the world. And it wasn't the one Majima had called out as a Phantom Thief.

They weren't the only youngsters to look at the Tojo Clan chairman without fear, but many of those didn't have an idea who Daigo was, that he could have them disappeared if he so wished. This kid and Akechi, wherever he ended up, knew who he was. They knew what he was, what he could do and they still weren't scared. And now Majima was trying to find excuses to hang out with them like he was just a kid himself. Working for the Okumura heiress on her new cafe... did he honestly think Daigo was that stupid?

"Dammit," he sighed, falling back into a high leather chair as he looked out at the Tokyo skyline. His head ached as though it was trying to tell him something, the Phantom Thieves seemed familiar but something was stopping him from making the connection, every time he tried to concentrate on it his brain seemed to blow a fuse and send him back to square one. This wasn't going to go away and his second in command was goofing off, time to delegate this to someone who actually could do the job. Reaching for his phone and hitting number three on the speed dial, he waited for the man on the other end to pick up before talking "Saejima."

"Boss. What's wrong?" was the crackled response.

"I need you to find out what you can about these kids Majima's taken an interest in. Start with Okumura, there should be more information on her than any of the others. Come back to me in one week with a progress report." Dojima ordered.

"Just me?" the big man asked.

"Yes just you," Daigo responded, irritation edging into his voice "If the Mad Dog himself is taking an interest, what do you think will happen to some street-level thug who gets caught snooping around them? Do it yourself or get Majima to listen for once. I want solid information and I'm getting tired of the two most important families fucking around on my payroll!" He snapped.

"...Alright Daigo, see you in a week." came the eventual reply before the dial tone cut the conversation short, leaving Daigo to set the phone down and slump in his chair.

"Shouldn't have shouted..." the chairman groaned. This feeling of being so close to knowing something was getting to him, Majima's antics were getting to him, running a clan with a collective manpower of twenty thousand but only one hundred braincells was getting to him. It was going to be another long night in front of a search engine for Daigo Dojima.


	11. Chapter 11 - Majima Dojo

When Goro Majima talked about catching swords between his teeth, both Ryuji and Haru thought that this time the old Yakuza was being sarcastic. Hitting people with bats as a martial art was one thing, blocking blades with your face was quite another. So when Majima handed Haru a wooden katana and told her to swing for the fences after his two students had suited up in padded leathers only made tolerable by the extensive air conditioning system, the fluffy haired heiress had looked at the one eyed man in deep confusion.

"I'm serious, and aim high. This only works if you go for the head like I'm a zombie." Majima explained as Haru handled the wooden weapon nervously, letting out an ear piercing shriek as she charged forward and swung at his jaw. Both Haru's and Ryuji's eyes went wide as they saw that the Yakuza had just done what they thought was the realm of movie effects only: Majima was leaning back, teeth gripping the blunted blade that Haru was still holding on to.

"So cool..." Ryuji let out in a hushed whisper as Majima moved on to the next step, planting a hand on the ground so he could twist his whole body to not only yank the practice sword out of Haru's weakening grip, but also to swing his leg up to strike against the thick padding on the heiress' arms, not enough force to hurt but enough to shove her away and let the sword clatter to the floor of what was at one point probably a private ballet studio.

"Okay, in a real fight that would have been a metal sword, you'd be trying to force me down with it as a lever and I would've kicked you in the head not the arm," The Mad Dog explained as he wiped the spittle off the wood "Also your dentists are gonna hate you for doing it, so if you wanna do it consistently cut out cakes, candy and sodas."

"Wow... so much dedication..." Haru said in awed tones, still amazed at what the older man had performed.

"Well it is supposed to be a stupidly advanced technique. There's a much easier way to disarm someone though, Sakamoto-chan! You're up!" Majima called, tossing the wooden katana to Ryuji. After fumbling about catching the wooden katana the blond charged forward, sword raised, only to run face first into a fist that he was certain wasn't there a fraction of a second ago "Just punch 'em in the nose, gotta be quick though." Majima explained as Ryuji staggered back clutching his face.

"What the hell? Man!" The delinquent yelled, making sure he wasn't bleeding.

"Just a little receipt for the hallway tackle Sakamoto-chan," Majima replied with a smug grin "Pay me back if you can, but it's Majima-Sensei while I'm teaching you, got it?" he asked, leaning in with a hand to his ear when there was no response "I can't hear you!"

"Yes, Majima-Sensei..." Ryuji mumbled.

"Good! Now that we've got the targets of what I want you guys to be capable of, let's do this right with some warm ups and technique drills! Okumura-chan, are there any punching bags here?"

Majima would be the first to admit that he had no idea what he was doing with this training. Teaching others was Saejima's dream, not his, but whatever he was doing seemed to be working out well. Despite getting punched in the face earlier which was admittedly, kind of a dick move, Ryuji was taking to the more serious style of training well. Majima knew the schoolkid was more physically fit than he was, but he really needed someone to help him with techniques beyond 'Smash'. He could throw haymakers for days but he'd need to keep doing it for that long just to have a chance of actually hitting something, and that was from whoever was stuck trying to dodge or block getting bored of the telegraphed hits and forgetting to block the next one.

Haru, surprisingly enough, was having similar problems to her boyfriend. Her punches and kicks did have some real power to them, and she was physically fit, if not with the bottomless bucket of stamina that the blond had, but she too struggled with both technique and the speed of her strikes, maybe it was a general newbie thing to struggle with but after having but Ryuji through the assault course that was supposed to be impossible and having the impromptu slugfest in the Majima Construction office, the basics of 'How to Punch' was one of the things that he'd have to go back on and drill. Even if he had to sweeten the pot and promise Ryuji that he was going back to working with weapons soon enough, there were times where you couldn't shove a black metal baseball bat in a jacket and he'd have to learn how to deal with those times beyond the 'I'm going to hit the air and if you get tagged it's your own fault' plan that he was showing off now.

"Alright kids, that's going to be it for today." he called, several hours in. The heavy jackets had been discarded long ago after it was clear that no-one was going to be going mano-a-mano with anyone else today and both students had their respective tank tops ruined by sweat.

"Already?" Haru panted, looking up with a look of determination even if she was doubled over trying to catch her breath.

"Can't keep you here all night, Sakamoto-chan's mom might get worried what her son's been up to!" Majima cooed "Does she still blame me after I claimed you getting Shaken Down was a workplace accident?" he turned and asked.

"What?" Ryuji snapped up, mind racing back to when Majima had been chased out the day he'd run in to that over-sized purse snatcher "I don't think so?"

"Well better safe than sorry. She can give a real _**look**_ when she's mad," Majima joked as he picked up the discarded jackets "Same time, same place... when's free next?" he asked, realising the difficulties of trying to schedule a high school student and a college student to meet up at a reasonable hour.

"Tomorrow?" Ryuji suggested, swinging his arms around as he tried to stretch away the morning stiffness before it happened.

"Tomorrow it is!" Majima declared with a smile "Unless Okumura-chan-"

"You can use my house even if I can't make it," Haru said as she wiped the sweat off her forehead "Most of the staff know Ryuji already and since you're my private Self-Defence teacher now, they can probably let you in if they know one of us is available."

"Great! I'll turn you two into the Terrors of Tokyo in no time!" Majima cheered "We'll have to see how you good with weapons you are Okumura-chan~"

"Oooh! I should sharpen my axe!" Haru declared with a smile that would have been more appropriate for talking about puppies and other cute animals.

"H-hey, Sakamoto-chan," Majima began, sidling over to the blond "Is she serious about the axe thing? That's the second time she says she's got one." the one-eyed man asked.

"Oh yeah." Ryuji answered with a goofy smile as Haru quietly dashed off to get changed into non-sweat covered clothes.

"And you kids think I'm the scary one," Majima groaned, slapping his student hard on the back "See you next time, and get really pissed off at school will ya? It gives an extra umph to your fists."

"Don't need your help to get mad at math." Ryuji groaned, stuffing various things

"That's the spirit! Screw numbers!" Majima cheered, throwing a thumbs up as the blond left, leaving him alone to pick up the rest of his equipment with a grin on his face. Now all he had to do was wait. Waiting was both difficult and easy in a place that was fancy enough to have staff: easy in that all he had to do was sit down on a plush looking sofa looking out over a courtyard while someone brought him tea and an ashtray, difficult in that he was constantly getting stink eyes from people while he tried to relax.

Okay, so maybe it was a little creepy being a guy in his 50s dressed in a snakeskin jacket that stopped being in style the day it was made about to have a private conversation with an eighteen year old who had more Yen in the bank than minutes spent alive, but that was no reason to give someone the side-eye on their blindside while pouring out two cups. That was just rude. At least they quickly scarpered when Haru returned "You wanted to talk to me?" she asked, back to wearing a pink, well-worn sweater.

"You make it sound like the teacher's just called you into the office." Majima chuckled.

"Well, you asked us to call you Majima-Sensei." Haru pointed out.

"Okay, you got me there." Majima admitted, taking time to blow on the tea in the dainty cup.

"So... what's this about?" Haru asked, sitting down next to him.

"Right! So, I kinda know Sakamoto-chan now. Both his school sent me a profile and he was working for me for a week," he explained, holding his hand up "I don't really know much about you Okumura-chan. Other than you're rich, you're a-" he paused, making sure there was no one else in the room. Didn't want to make Ryuji look like a bastion of secret-keeping "-a Phantom Thief, and you're super down to be trained as a badass by a notorious Yakuza boss despite looking like you prefer knitting scarves to stabbing people with the needles." Majima finished.

"I never got on with knitting." Haru admitted with a smile.

"See, we're learning stuff about each other already!" the Mad Dog chuckled as he took a sip "So what are your interests, besides Phantom Thievery?"

"Well... I ran a rooftop garden when I was in high school, growing veggies and flowers." Haru started.

"Sounds like something that took a lot of effort to keep running," Majima said in a 'keep talking' tone.

"It was! Especially before I became a Phantom Thief and had to do everything myself. Those Fertiliser bags were heavy and you had to have a special card to use the elevators at school." Haru continued as Majima nodded along.

"That explains the punching power, you've got some muscle under the fluff." Majima complimented, raising the thin porcelain cup in a sort of toast.

"So what am I going to learn things about you, Majima-Sensei?" the heiress asked, turning the tables as he was about to take a sip.

"Eh?"

"You said we're learning things about each other, not just you learning things about me." Haru pointed out.

"Well..." Majima stalled "...keep this secret from Sakamoto-chan, 'cause he will laugh his ass off and I'd have to kick it back. But..." he said, leaning in to whisper "I got really into slot car races. Not as a kid, but when I was 41."

"Slot car races?" Haru asked in confusion.

"What, you don't know what slot cars are? Have you never heard of the wonders of Pocket Circuit?" Majima asked in shock as Haru shook her head "Man... childhood must be rough for the current generation. Denied even the most basic pleasures," he lamented as Haru giggled away.

"Okay! Your turn again!" Haru declared, pointing back at the one-eyed man.

"So... who runs the garden now? You're at college, right?" Majima asked, trying to keep the conversation in comfortable waters.

"Ryuji does!" She answered with a smile.

"So you let your boyfriend take over once you left?"

"He'd already started helping before I graduated. It used to be Ren who'd help out but..." she started to explain before her smile started to fade "...when he couldn't... Ryuji took over, some days he would use it as his exercise and tend to the plants even when I couldn't." she finished, brightening up when she started talking about the blond.

"Ren... which one was he?" Majima asked "Was he the guy who was staring at his hands in the karaoke club?"

"No, that was Yusuke. Ren was the one wearing glasses and not a shirt." Haru explained with a chuckle.

"Ah, the metal duet special. You know I could never find anyone to do that with me? Apparently I've got a rep that I can't sing for crap," Majima said as innocently as a child trying very hard to act innocent "So blondie took over the garden and he's doing good with it? Wait. Did me pulling him out for a week kill the plants?" he asked in a faux-panic.

"They're fine, he checked afterwards," Haru waved off "So... my question now."

"Hit me."

"I thought you said training was over?" the brunette looked at him with a confused expression.

"It's an expression," Majima groaned "It means 'go on and ask me'."

"Okay, so... how... how come you have a reputation for being scary yet you're so easy to talk to?" Haru asked.

"Well, first of all: I'm a professional," Majima answered, despite all evidence to the contrary "And it's bad form to spook outsiders for no reason, not everything has to be 'Raargh, raargh, smash yo stuff' all the time," he explained "and second of all: talking to young women like this used to be part of my job when I was a lot younger. Before I was the Mad Dog, I was the Lord of the Night."

"Lord of the Night?" Haru repeated in awed tones as Majima nodded, smiling "I never thought you'd be something like that, Majima-Sensei."

"It was a different time, a different me..." Majima said wistfully.

"Was it hard being a male hostess?" Haru asked innocently, causing the Mad Dog to spit out a mistimed mouthful of tea.

"WHAT!?" Majima snapped "I was the manager! I wasn't a club host!" He insisted, reasoning that it was probably not a good idea to tell Haru about Goromi.

"Oh." Haru said, looking apologetic as Majima calmed down.

"It's fine, I guess I could have phrased it better..." Majima sighed.

"But where does talking to young women fit in with being a manager?"

"The hospitality business is stressful," he explained "Nerves get frayed, personalities clash. Sometimes having a heart to heart with your staff can cut off a lot of problems before they start, and a big part of that is getting to know what people really find important."

"I think I understand," she said, nodding along "And if anyone has a problem they'd need someone they could trust as a confidant."

"Exactly," Majima agreed, wiping his mouth "You had to really care to be a real manager and not just some jackass swinging other people's money around. But you had to be careful so no-one thought you were playing favourites, which I never did but... eh, it was a long time ago."

"So who's your favourite now?" Haru asked.

"Huh?"

"If you're not a manager of a club any more, that means you could start playing favourites."

"You can be really mean sometimes Okumura-chan." Majima complained before they both broke out into giggles.

* * *

**Imagine "As You Like" or "Fake Love" playing faintly in the background for the last part, it helps.**


	12. Chapter 12 - Browsing History

There were times in Saejima's life where he had to seriously ask himself what the hell he was doing and this was becoming one of them fast: what the actual fuck was he doing stalking out a college? He was in his fifties, had spent a great deal of his adult life in prison and on the streets, was a Captain in the Tojo clan and now his boss was trying to get him to spy on a bunch of teenagers because of one of Majima's numerous eccentricities had caused the one-eyed man to take in school-kids like he was Batman and they were potential Robins, only hopefully without the associated mortality rate.

What made it all the more disturbing was that he got the distinct impression he wasn't the only one trying to spy on one college student in particular. A limousine with blacked out windows prowled the outskirts of campus frequently enough for Taiga to notice it, practically running over the big man's toes in order to get a better angle to snoop on Haru Okumura, the girl who now owned the largest share in Okumura Foods. Were they after the Phantom Thieves as well? Or were there other reasons for them to conspicuously stalk the heiress? Growling as he shuffled the newspaper in front of him, he waited to see what happened next.

"Training with that man again?" Came the sigh as Okumura and the brunette girl that Saejima saw with her at the karaoke bar walked along a path opposite to both sets of watchers "This can't be good for you." the brunette complained, shaking her head.

"It's fun!" Haru said with a smile on her face "And it's safe with all the padding, Makoto. It's like a private kendo club."

"Only without a formally qualified instructor." Makoto pointed out.

"And we don't use swords... so I guess it's not really like a kendo club," Haru admitted "But you should join us! You really like the sense of danger too~"

"In movies, maybe," Makoto said defensively "Not in real life. I'm studying criminal law and forensics, I can't be associated with a known gangster. It could ruin my career before it even starts." she whispered.

"Aww," Haru whined, her shoulders slumping "Oh well. Maybe if you don't want to join us for the training you can still come to Osaka this weekend?"

"Why are you going to Osaka?"

"He says there's a very special training place there and a store that he thinks I'd enjoy!"

"...You do realise how bad that can sound, right?" The two went back and forth, the brunette groaning at her friend's incessant optimism about being taken under the wing of the Mad Dog, but what really got Saejima's attention was the chatter from the limousine instead. A muffled voice trying to speak clearly but quietly. Sighing as he folded up his paper, the Tojo clan captain walked over and tapped on the luxury vehicle.

"You lost here, bud?" He asked in a low growl, trying to get the attention of the people within. The window only rolled down slightly but it was all he needed to see. A bunch of heavies stuffed into suits with sunglasses talking into their phones with no hint of a VIP in sight.

"We're fine, thank you." Was the stiff but level reply as the window was closed and the limo drove away, fearing its cover blown by the big man. Dojima might have been right about scouting out the kids, if they were attracting attention from groups with the money and manpower beyond the personal link Majima had with them, then the Mad Dog might have just pulled them into something a lot bigger than any of them were anticipating.

* * *

Daigo woke up in a state that was starting to become tradition: at his desk with his head in a nest of alternating whiskey glasses and coffee cups. At least he could comfort himself in the knowledge that at least half of those weren't drunk yesterday, or the day before that by the state of some of the glasses. As the headache blared through his senses he brought his eyes up to the glowing computer screen in front of him, buzzing for someone to bring him some water and painkillers before he actually had to find a comfier place to lay down, like the floor.

What had he been doing up until human biology had stopped taking 'five more minutes' as an answer? Ah yes, trying to dig at that nagging sensation in the back of his mind, the Phantom Thieves. He hadn't been _constantly_ at it, just when any other business of the day had been concluded and he'd justified it as having nothing better to do. He probably should have had something to do but that was a conversation to be had when not hit with the double whammy of caffeine withdrawal and a hangover.

It wasn't just him and Saejima who had no idea what these teenagers actually were. A basic search of online meeting places that were considered 'for teens' had produced nothing but a distinct hatred of social media, any news articles from what was supposedly their peak had no mentions either, he'd even called the Florist as an attempt to get something, but even that had gone badly, Dojima could tell the fat man was trying his best not to laugh at him.

At least his phone buzzing in his pocket was providing a convenient distraction from embarrassed memories "Dojima." He answered with surprising composure for the situation.

"Flower delivery," was the wheezing voice on the other end of the line "About your order."

"Go ahead." Daigo sighed, waiting for the inevitable polite dismissal of his growing obsession.

"Are you ah... sitting down?" The Florist asked "I got a problem with it that... well..."

"Spit it out dammit." the chairman growled, pressing his palm into his forehead.

"You asked me for this group before."

"What? When?" Dojima snapped, sitting up straight.

"That's the thing... it was last year. July tenth, right after Kaneshiro got busted." The Florist finished, sounding almost ashamed.

"So Majima was right about them being the ones..." Dojima mumbled "Why didn't you tell me earlier? You always remember who asks for what. That's why you cost so damn much."

"You get what you pay for!" the information broker snapped back "But... you're right, I do. 'Cept for this one. Didn't just slip my mind, slipped past the network too. Had to really dig to find what I did for you last time."

"Okay," Daigo sighed, no point burning a bridge as valuable as this was "So could you re-send me what you did last time?"

"Already there, hope your message tone ain't too loud." The Florist agreed, letting the phone buzz right by his ear before the line went dead.

Three messages, what looked to be a website address broken into parts for him to type manually into his browser. No special equipment required by the look of things, definitely a general high-school IT project job as he was greeted by an elaborate design and a few lines of text reading 'Welcome to the Phantom Thieves Phan Site'. An anonymous image board, specifically for these Phantom Thieves, but a cursory glance showed that the site was practically abandoned and had been since December last year. "What the heck..." he whispered to himself as he saw the deserted threads, including one labelled 'Nominate a Target'. An eerie sense of Deja-vu washing over him as he saw the last post that hadn't been consumed by the archives or purged by the administrator.

Yohei Kiritani. Part time homeless man, part time vicious assassin. The Yomei Alliance's weapon of choice when it came to clearing out Tokyo for them to move in. The memories were coming back, he'd asked for this group of teenagers to take on one of the most dangerous figures in the underworld, and they'd won! Somehow. Either way Tojo clan members no longer had to fear for their lives from this individual and the Alliance had scurried back to Hiroshima.

The revelation wasn't exactly a comforting one. If he'd put so much faith in this group before, why had it slipped his mind completely, and why did Majima still remember?

* * *

Futaba tried to ignore the subtle buzz in her bag, unless someone was dying, they could wait until she had finished her home-cooked lunchbox and if someone was dying, it was unlikely she could do anything about it. There were very few things more important in this world than Sojiro's cooking and her phone wasn't one of them.

Taking the last delicious morsel she finally looked at her phone, expecting to see a message from Ren groaning about how much his new high school somehow sucked more than this one, only to find it from Mishima of all people, requesting she meet him on the roof.

"What's going on?" She asked, taking great effort to shove the door to the rooftop gardens open "I'm not helping with the plants if that's what you want."

"It's not that," Mishima said defensively, looking more nervous than he had done in months "Its the..." he began, dropping his voice to a low whisper "It's the old phan site."

"What about it?" Futaba asked, not even bothering to hide her annoyance about having to walk all the way up to the roof.

"It's got activity lately." Mishima answered "I thought no-one remembered. Heck, I've only got it set up so I can check the hit count in the background, can you check it out? Please?"

Futaba scowled, it was probably nothing, an old link dredging up a creepy dead website. It happens sometimes. But... "Ugh, fine. Doubt I'll get anything but it's something to do. You owe me for this though: Next run, you're on heal-bitch duty." better safe than sorry

"Aww man. Heal-bitch duty suucks..." Mishima groaned "Everyone always yells at you for their fuckups."

"I know, that's why it's called Heal-bitch. So it's suck it up and spread the heals or I don't do anything," Futaba declared "Also I'll need your phone for five minutes."

* * *

**Fire Emblem is threatening to consume me so updates are going to be a little more sporadic from here on out. But rest assured I am working on every one of these crossovers. Even at 1 in the morning**


	13. Chapter 13 - Queen and Tiger

It was Saturday Night and things were going well, Ryuji and Haru sitting next to each other hand in hand, their eyes closed as the brunette rested her head on the blond's shoulder, the sound of rain lightly beating on glass as they drifted off into a gentle slumber. A slumber that was soon interrupted by the sound of a very loud car horn and associated cursing.

"USE THE TURN SIGNALS IF YOU WANNA CHANGE LANES YOU OVERSIZED SMOG FACTORY! HAVE YOU BEEN BREATHING IN YOUR OWN DAMN FUMES?!" Came the yell from barely 4 feet in front of them, jostling them both awake.

"Geez man... trying to catch some sleep back here." Ryuji groaned from the back seat of the Majima-Mobile, his own construction company van painted blue and green for reasons beyond marketing.

"And I'm trying to drive but these assholes think that just because there's only five things on the road and none of them are cops that the rules of the road don't apply any more!" Goro snapped back, the drive from Osaka from Tokyo was over six hours long and even though the Mad Dog had been calm negotiating the traffic hell of an urban city he was starting to fall apart into a barking rage at any mistake or misfortune that befell him or other drivers. His previous assertion that he could handle going all night on just coffee and cigarettes was probably an early warning. They hadn't even reached Nagoya yet.

Majima had suggested a training trip to Osaka off-hand at one point and both his trainees had jumped at the chance, the logistics of the expedition were a much bigger problem. The plan was to arrive on Saturday night, spend most of Sunday exploring and training before heading back for school and college on the Monday morning. The problem was the training gear.

It was only three hours by train and easy enough to sleep there, but the three couldn't exactly move all their equipment along public transport without someone getting very suspicious. How Ren managed to sneak about one million yen's worth of airsoft guns across Tokyo was a secret that the Phantom Thief leader wasn't sharing, so the owner of the Majima Dojo came up with a solution: Going they would take the van with all the weapons and training gear, park it in a secure location and on the Sunday Kenji would come down to Osaka via the faster train and pick up the van with all the gear while the three came back to Tokyo on the train. It was a flawless plan, except for the flaw that Majima was getting very angry while the Phantom Thieves would rather rest before what was promising to be a big day for them.

"So... you said we'd be crashing somewhere? Is this calling in a favour from an old Yakuza contact?" Ryuji asked, discarding the idea of getting some sleep in favour of trying to breaking Majima's increasingly angry stride.

"Huh?" Majima let out, mouth opening for another rant before the caffeine boosted brain kicked in to interrupt it "Oh, right. Never explained that bit."

"You still haven't." the tough-guy in training pointed out.

"Yeaaah I don't do that a lot." Majima sighed, letting the silence play out.

"So..." Ryuji began again.

"So what?"

"Aren't you gonna tell us?"

"Did I not?"

"No!"

"Oh. Well you two are getting to stay at a place owned by an old friend-slash-not friend of mine." Majima half-explained.

"Friend slash not-friend?" Haru repeated.

"It'll make sense once we get there," the one eyed man attempted to reassure her "Although Sakamoto-Chan? When we get there, get the ice pack out of the cooler ready for it."

"What? Why?"

"Because the last time we were face to face she said the next time she saw me she was gonna kick me in the dick. Hard. I mean, she's not strong as either of you and she might not even remember, but if she does, I owe it to her not to wear a cup for it. Which means you gotta pass the ice when it happens."

"Dude, that was way to much information." Ryuji groaned.

"You kids wanted an explanation, you got an explanation!" Majima growled out "Now if you don't mind, I gotta drive three more hours in the rain."

"Eeeesh." the blond whispered, wincing at Haru.

"Just try and rest up..." The brunette yawned, trying to make herself comfortable on Ryuji's chest.

* * *

It was hard to be inconspicuous in a black limousine, no matter how sneaky someone thought they were being it was by it's very nature a conspicuous choice of vehicle, limos were for showing off in, not for skulking around. Whoever was stalking Haru on campus clearly had a lot of resources to use, and none of the sense to use them properly. All the more easy for someone to turn the spies into the spied.

Makoto liked to think that her tailing technique had come a long way in a year, from merely wondering the halls peering over the top of a magazine to actually being quite subtle about things, she was wearing shades so no-one far away could tell what she was looking at, earphones that didn't connect to anything so it looked like she was listening to music, and a notebook on her lap. To anyone watching, it would just seem like a student wanted some fresh air while trying to do an assignment in no great panic when in reality she was watching that limo like a hawk.

"So whatcha reckon 'bout these guys?" Asked a deep voice next to her.

"Highly paid, but not their day job. Likely at someone else's order and with how expensive yet amateur the set up is, I'd say it was ordered by someone fairly young to not think it through but with enough cash to throw around," Makoto rattled off before looking to see who had approached her, coming face to face with the giant of a Yakuza captain Taiga Saejima. The brunette bit her tongue to stop herself from reflexively screaming at the sudden sight, instead calmly folding away her scribbled in notebook and waiting for the moment that he reached out to grab at her. He had to be at least twice her size and even with her aikido skills that was a difference that would be hard to overcome even if he hadn't been a known veteran of many street fights.

Fortunately, the kidnap attempt never came "Relax," the big man said, holding up a hand "I'm not here to cause trouble for you."

"Then who are you here to cause trouble for?" Makoto asked, picking apart Taiga's words.

"If needed, the suits in that limo," Saejima gestured, not mentioning the accusing tone "Good call about them having more cash than brains to throw into watching someone though." he added, giving a reassuring nod.

"So... what do you make of them?" the college student asked cautiously.

"Dunno, they don't look like they're part of any gang or family putting on airs and either some agency wants a show of equipment in a 'you now know we're watching you' way or you guys managed to piss off someone with a lot of cash to burn," Saejima summarized as the limousine drove away "Though they don't seem to care about you too much."

"Were they after Haru then?" Makoto pondered "And what's your angle in all of this?" she added

"Same as you, trying to make sure my blood brother didn't swing his dick into a hornet nest." he said, rising from the bench and towering over the Queen of the Phantom Thieves.

"I see," Makoto said curtly "Well then, it seems we have a common cause."

"Huh?" now it was Saejima's turn to look confused.

"Neither of us appreciate having our close friends spied upon," the brunette began "and we've both made a start looking towards who's doing the spying."

"Aren't you going for a police job? I'm an ex-con and Yakuza captain on top," Saejima pointed out "You were warning your friend away from Majima 'cause of that."

"Well, that was different," Makoto replied, going over potential ways to cover for herself "That's actively associating with gangs for fun and business. With us it's just two people who happen to have the same goal covertly sharing information."

"...Fine, do you need a number?" Saejima conceded, reaching in his pocket for his phone.

"It would be better to use a chat app, much more covert and hard to trace. Do you have a favourite IM, I could send you any link through there." Makoto suggested, tapping on her own phone.

"Uh..." Saejima stalled as he dug out his now-ancient flip phone "I'll just give you my number."

"Okay." Makoto sighed as she scribbled down the digits, complete with advice to get a burner phone to use it with. The college student had to play it calm and careful, she was now dealing with some of the most dangerous individuals in Tokyo, but as she headed back to her dorm, heart racing as she walked, it was all she could do to wait before squealing "This is so cool!"


	14. Chapter 14 - Osakan Expedition

When Goro Majima had mentioned his students were staying at a place owned by a old friend/not-friend of his, there were several ideas of what that might be running through their heads, bantering back and forth silently through their phones to avoid sparking the wrath of the stressed out Mad Dog. Ryuji had a vision of a an old office run by a woman with a half-burned, half-tattooed face who smoked using a cigarette holder and had been running a clan since the late 70s and had a body count higher than every other gangster in western Japan. Haru, being the more grounded of the two, suggested that since she knew Majima had links to the tourism side of things in Osaka that they were more likely going to be staying in the back rooms of a strip club ran by one of the dancers who worked there back when Majima owned the place. A concept that made Ryuji's face go so red if he stuck his head out it would have stopped traffic.

It turned out that random speculation during hours that two teenagers should have been spent sleeping rather than bullshitting back and forth was not a good way to figure out what was going to happen. But Haru's guess was closer.

"Why didn't you say that your students were going to be this cute?" The manager of the Hotel Sunshine cooed as the two students were presented to her, dressed in a thick pink jacket over a grey shirt, long brown hair tied up into a ponytail that hung heavy behind her back, only the slightest hint of grey hair at the roots covered up by the best dye a reasonable amount of money could buy, Yuki may have been in her early fifties but she still looked good for it.

"And spoil the surprise?" Majima smiled wearily "Now I know you want to spoil them but Yuki-chan, I'm really not in the mood for the back and forth tonight, so can you please tell me we didn't travel six hours to crash on an office couch?" he pleaded.

"Well..." Yuki began, earning a loud groan of frustration from the tired Majima "Of course I've kept some rooms spare for you!" she snapped back, rolling her eyes as she reached into a draw, pulling out a few magnetic keycards for the three to grasp.

"Thanks Yuki-sama." Haru bowed, taking the room key with both hands graciously, before grabbing Ryuji by the hand and leading them off.

"Wait! There's a room for him as well!" Yuki called out as the two teenagers rapidly disappeared from view.

"We won't need it, thank you!" Haru called back.

"Save your energy you two! You've both gotta be able to walk early tomorrow!" Majima yelled earning a noise somewhere between a yelp and a suppressed shriek.

"DUDE!" Ryuji yelled back, taking a moment to compose himself.

"Ah young love..." Majima cooed as the blond and brunette finally vanished round the magnolia coloured corridor "Ever feel that way about someone Yuki-chan?" he asked, fishing for the last key card.

"Once," Yuki replied "Then he disappeared for twenty years without a phone call." she finished, gently shoving Majima out of the room.

"Walked right into that one." he sighed.

The hotel room itself was nothing more than clean and functional: inoffensive paint on the walls, blue carpet on the floor, a small bathroom with a lockable door and shower that never seemed to be the right temperature, a desk with a chair but most importantly only one bed. "So uh..." Ryuji mumbled, dumping his bags out "First time hotel together! Thought it be... a lot... you know... different. Less um... fighting stuff going on with it."

"Mmm." Sighed Haru as she snuggled into the covers, bushy hair spreading out into the pillows as she beckoned the blond to bed.

"It's just... I kinda had a thing planned in my head, for... I dunno, summer maybe?" he sighed, throwing off his shirt and shoes before flopping down on to mattress with a heavy squeak from the springs "I fake having pneumonia or something, I'd have to get my mom on board first but after that we'd skip town, maybe find a place in the countryside. There's a legit hot spring, just the two of us, y'know? 'Course I can't afford that kinda stuff but if it was the first time going on vacation alone I'd want it to be something special so-" Ryuji rambled on, looking up at the ceiling before a single finger across his lips silenced him.

"It's still got the most special thing." Haru purred, letting Ryuji roll over and bathe in the glow of her soft smile.

"Is it me?" He asked with a smile of his own, reaching in to smooch the brunette.

"Of course."

* * *

Ryuji woke up to a loud thumping at the door, his arm was numb and his cheek was plastered with drool, but it was hard to feel bad about that while watching Haru's eyes slowly flutter open. Not even the rude awakening could make this moment not amazing "Hey babe..." He said in his best attempt at a suave voice, enough to make the both of them burst into a fit of giggles.

"Well I'm glad you find having 5 hours sleep funny!" Majima yelled from the corridor "But you got fifteen minutes to get dressed. This ain't a vacation this is a train-cation!"

"Train-cation?" Haru whispered to Ryuji, unsure if she actually heard it or the sudden start was making her groggy, the blond just opted to shrug his head as he rolled off the bed.

"Just roll with it..." he yawned as he shuffled into the bathroom, clothes bag in one hand and toothbrush in the other.

Fifteen minutes had become Fifty and Majima was already eyeing the no smoking sign with disdain as the two made it to the hotel bar for breakfast "Finally." He growled.

"So what's the plan boss man?" Ryuji asked, not even bothering to apologize or hide a lipstick stain on the collar of his tank top.

"The plan is in the morning you hit the parks for warm up exercise, today's gonna be rough as hell for you two so we need to start right," he began, stopping himself to take a swig of coffee "And then you get to meet another one of my old friends for lunch."

"Does she want to hit you as well?" Haru asked innocently while Ryuji crushed a laugh into a snort.

"No, he does not." Majima sighed, rolling his eye as his two charges got in the shots they could, mentally adding an extra part of the circuit to the morning's activities. If they were going to talk shit after everything he'd done to organise this trip, then they could pay for it with their lives! Well... maybe not that extreme, but it'd feel like they were gonna die, even if they weren't.

And with how Ryuji was groaning as they rode the train back into the Sotenbori district Majima could easily say that he had paid both of them back for any annoyance and then some. In fact, he probably owed them a couple of free shots later, not that he was going to tell them that. "Ugh..." the blond groaned "I'm getting flashbacks to over a year ago..."

"Well at least..." Haru panted as she drained another water bottle "At least we know your leg's much better than it was then."

"But much worse than it was yesterday..." he whined.

"Alright so I might have gone a little over the top there. Whadda ya expect, I ain't a pro fitness co-ordinator I'm the self defence guru," Majima said defensively "Besides, the assault course was way worse."

"You didn't make me re-do the construction site run 'cause you thought I still had more gas in the tank, jackass." Ryuji cursed.

"It was a lot..." Haru agreed.

"Right right, but that's the cardio part of the day done and dusted. From now on if you don't feel like running I ain't making you." Majima promised.

"Except we're gonna need to move fast for the next bit." Ryuji pointed out.

"True... but you don't _have_ to. If you want you can just take the hit, but that's in a few hours. Now it's lunch time!"

"Are we going to the place with the big crab?" Haru asked.

"There's a place with a big crab?" Ryuji asked, curiosity overcoming exhaustion.

"No we're not going to the place with the big crab," Majima shot down to general disapointment "It's overpriced in there. And I told you we were gonna meet up with one of my old friends here, didn't I? They run a tiny place opposite the crab place."

The tiny place was a small throwback on the modern high street, a Chinese restaurant tucked in between high-tech shops with LED displays, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of peanut oil frying anything and everything it could as a grey haired man tended the kitchen "Can I help you?" He asked, turning his head to see who had just entered.

"Hey Fei Hu, it's been a while." Majima said as he leaned over the counter.

"Good to see you again," Fei nodded as he turned off the flames "I take it these are the two disciples?"

"Disciples is a... strong way of putting it," Majima waved off "They're students in the ways of being a melee weapon toting badass in a modern world."

"That's not exactly a tradition." Fei said, folding his arms.

"Hey, they gotta start somewhere," Majima joked as he looked at the menu laminated onto the counter "Little different from what I remember, didn't even think you could fry rice with pineapple."

"Things change Goro, even in a place like this. Now I'm assuming everyone wants to eat first."

"YES." Came the unanimous reply.

"Of course," the old man chuckled "Just sit down, tell me what you want and I'll make it. Long Hua should be back soon with the other selection."

"Long Hua?" Ryuji asked "Wasn't that name on the old boxes you got at the site?"

"Yup, she's still working hard," Majima nodded as he headed for a table "Hey Fei? How old is the Tiger now? Or was she the Dragon and you the Tiger? Wait, she's definitely the Dragon of the two."

"Young enough to still get mad if I try to slap a number on it." the chef called back to a hearty laugh from the Mad Dog.

"Man I missed this place." Majima sighed as his two students slumped back in their chairs, perking up when the steaming bowls were dropped in front of them.

"So's he like this ancient kung fu master we gotta train with?" Ryuji began again between mouthfuls, each grain of rice boosting him up "Think I saw it in a movie once."

"First of all, he's not that old," Majima corrected after slurping back a noodle "Second of all... yeah pretty much."

"And third of all I can hear you." Fei Hu added in.

"And third of all his hearing's still pretty great so don't talk shit. He taught me a lot about using weapons."

"You taught yourself, I was there to guide the potential."

"So are we here for you to guide our potential as well?" Haru asked.

"I hope so, but that can wait until after a rest. I can see Majima already has you running ragged."

"Only for this morning," Majima whined "We got one day here, it's got to count!"

"And it shall," Fei promised as the door slid open and an old woman stepped in, not even hesitating as she walked over to Majima "Ah, Long! Did you get everything?"

"Majima! It's been too long," Long Hua said, wrapping her arms around the one eyed man without a thought to her husband's words "So what brings my favourite customer back to Osaka? And who are these two you've brought with you?"

"They are Majima's pupils, the reason I gave you the request list," Fei explained with a sigh "Did you manage to get what I asked for?" he asked again.

"Of course I did, Kamiyama's bringing it around the back." Long Hua dismissed before turning back to Majima.

"Do you want to bring the stuff in here? These kids are the reasons I asked Fei to help out." Majima asked while Ryuji and Haru were left to exchange confused expressions.

Long Hua took a deep look at the blond and the brunette, silently judging them before heading through the restaurant and yelling something in Chinese out the back entrance and turning back "He'll just be a second."

"You see kids, this ain't your ordinary secret trainer in a semi-hidden spot in the world," Majima explained as a heavy box was wheeled out to their table, the Mad Dog bowed in thanks before he opened the lock and threw it open "It's a blacksmiths too," He bragged as the glow of shimmering metal shined up into the peering faces of Ryuji and Haru, jaws dropping as their brains confirmed what their eyes were seeing within: Axes, swords, spears, tonfas, Kali sticks, nunchaku, even metallic baseball bats. All seemingly crafted from scratch and bearing the mark of the Dragon & Tiger restaurant "Go ahead, think it's time you felt what real weapons are."


	15. C15 Osakan Smiles and Hacking Trials

Wood clashed with wood, sending splinters scattering into the grass as Ryuji pressed on with his assault, his swings slowing down with exhaustion as he battered his way through the seemingly impregnable guard in front of him. He knew that there was no way he could let his foe win after all his effort. It would be too embarrassing to show his face after getting beaten up by a sixty year old man wielding a pair of drumsticks.

"C'mon Sakamoto-chan!" Goro Majima called from the sidelines, yelling through a rolled up magazine as Haru slumped back in a plastic garden chair, a wooden axe propped up against the wall as she drained what seemed to be her third bottle of water "I trained you better than this, stop with the basic swings and get past that guard! If I could do it when he was thirty years younger he should be a smear on the wall by now!"

"You wanna step in!?" Ryuji yelled back as he shifted his grip on the bat for a better blocking stance while Fei Hu attempted to perform YYZ by Rush on the blond's ribcage, even managing to get a few stinging blows before the student's shoulder rammed into his chest, knocking the blacksmith back.

"Concentrate." Fei said sternly as he discarded the small sticks for a long, thin piece of lumber, getting a groan from Ryuji as he realised that his most intense real life boss fight was about to show another phase of pain.

Shakily placing a plastic bottle down on the ground, Haru looked up at the two fighters and shook her head "How... how does he have so much energy still?" she panted, rubbing the sore spots from her own training session.

"Your little Golden Retriever's got enough juice for the lot of us," Majima answered with a great sense of pride as the Blond bounced back from being knocked on his ass for what seemed like the tenth time in the hour "I'd be chugging protein shakes and energy drinks at this point to keep in the fight against Fei."

"I meant Fei..." Haru wheezed as Ryuji tried to trap the impromptu polearm under his foot.

"Oh," Majima let out, realising what Haru was trying to talk about as Ryuji lunged in, catching the chef on the elbow with the tip of his bat while Fei was still trying to pull the piece of lumber free "Well that... I dunno. Might be the food, might be herbal tea, might be 'roids. Who cares? He's a badass and you did great against him for first time."

"Gotcha!" Ryuji declared in victory as he leapt forward, tackling the blacksmith down to the ground, pinning him under the damaged training bat.

Ever the fair fighter, Fei was quick to groan out a "Well done," as he laid down on the dirt, letting the blond roll off next to him while they both caught their breath "You did well with these two, Majima." He called out to the applauding spectators.

"Way to go Ryuji!" Haru squeed as she stumbled out of her chair, deliberately aiming her flop to land on the blond in a perfect celebratory hug position, even if they were both on the ground "You're all sweaty." She chuckled.

"You too." Ryuji replied with a pained smile.

"Alright kids, break it up or get a room. There are old men who don't wanna get put on some kind of list." Majima instructed as he helped the blacksmith back to his feet.

"You're the one who took us out of our hotel at like six in the morning." Ryuji groaned from underneath Haru.

"Yeah! Give us a break!" The fluffy haired heiress added.

"And a nap."

"Nap sounds good..."

"Yeah it does..."

"Alright, I get it!" Majima grumbled "I'll get some coffee or sodas first. But this day ain't over! You've still got the ultimate challenge left!" the one-eyed Yakuza declared.

* * *

Daigo Dojima stared nonplussed at the pictures on his desk and again at the man who put them there "So, what exactly am I supposed to get from these?" He asked, looking up at the giant of a man.

"It means we ain't the only ones interested in who the heck these kids are," Taiga Saejima answered as he spread the photographs around, it had taken longer than he was proud to admit to find someone who could develop camera film "That limo's been there for a couple weeks. Same time we found out what Majima was up to."

"And the same time Majima started acting as the Okomura heiress' personal trainer, this could be unrelated to the Phantom Thieves and more related to us starting to hang around rich kids." Daigo suggested.

"Don't think so." The large man disagreed.

"Why not?"

"If they were after us, Omi or Yomei, they would have spotted me a mile away. They were focused on the girl and Majima, not me. That says they don't know the clan too well other than the basics." Saejima explained.

"Hence spotting a link with Majima I guess. Compared to the Mad Dog we're faces in a crowd," the captain mused "How did you figure out how long they've been watching her?"

It took a lot to make Taiga hesitate about a question like that, and working with the people he'd been asked to spy on was one of them "Security team mentioned it when they were harassing me. I asked them about the limo, they said its been there a few days longer but it ain't in their paygrade." It was half-true. The campus security team didn't take kindly to someone who looked like... Saejima, and they had said how long the limo was there. Only they'd told a student and not him.

"You didn't..?"

"Didn't touch 'em."

"Good," sighed Daigo "Sorry to ask this from you Saejima, I just wanted someone I could rely on looking into it. Someone who won't just bullshit me about what they're doing or screw up in the first five seconds."

"It's not a problem," Saejima replied, silently kicking himself "A lot of the businesses run themselves now, just gotta remember to take the insurance money when its ready. This didn't take too long."

"Alright, I'll see if I can get the Florist on this ASAP, find out who our eavesdroppers with money to burn are."

"See ya, Captain Dojima." Taiga bowed as the phone burst into noise.

"Probably him now," Dojima said with a smirk as he looked at the phone ID. No number given on a line that had a receptionist screen the calls. The information broker was practically psychic "Moshi Moshi." He answered as the big man slipped out of the room.

"_**Is this the tomb robber?"**_ Came a distorted voice on the other line.

"Who is this?" Daigo asked, sitting straight up in his chair "How did you get this number?"

"_**Ah, so I was right. Daigo Dojima. First time too. You really shouldn't integrate your internal phone line with the internet. Too easy to break in to." **_

"If you know who you're talking too, then you know taunting me isn't a smart move." He warned the voice.

"_**Not taunting, merely answering my own questions as to who was digging up the past."**_

"The past?"

"_**Metal Gear?" **_The voice chuckled at the repetition _**"Ha, I think you have a good idea of what I'm talking about." **_It continued.

"Oh I get it, you're one of the Phantom Thieves, wondering why your old site got a hit." Daigo sighed, picturing the group of teenagers and wondering which one would be the most likely to pull something like this. Didn't they have school to worry about rather than trying to prank a serious underworld figure? It was probably the boy with the glasses, he seemed like a cocky little shit.

"_**Possibly, you may call me... Alibaba." **_

"Well then Alibaba, maybe you can answer this riddle of the sphinx for me. Why didn't I remember you?" Daigo asked accusingly.

"_**...What?"**_ Replied the voice.

"If you're so smart as to work out so much, you'd know it wasn't my first time looking. So how come I don't remember it? It looked like a pretty big deal." Dojima asked, slightly satisfied at stumping whoever was on the other end.

"_**...That's a complicated answer."**_ The voice settled for.

"Another way of saying 'I don't know'." He said, now with a firmly smug expression.

"_**So what did you want from the Phantom Thieves?"**_ Snapped Alibaba.

"Just curious... met one of them once, probably met you. I could do my own research, narrow down where you are and well..." Daigo threatened with a smirk

"_**And you could also bankrupt yourself buying exotic horse porn."**_ The voice responded impudently.

Confident that he was dealing with just some brat who didn't know better, Daigo pressed on. Maybe there was some good this talk could do. "Hmm... don't think I want that to happen, so how about we move away from threats and onto work."

"_**Why would you think I would work for Yakuza?"**_

"Common interest." Daigo Answered simply.

"_**...Keep talking..."**_

"There's been a limo out and about on Tokyo University campus. Spying on a miss Haru Okomura... but you probably knew that already. I've got pictures, do you think you'd be able to trace it? It's in our mutual interest to stick to the shadows... people sticking their nose in, doesn't really work out for us, does it?"

"_**You don't have them. I'm checking your mobile now."**_

God bless Saejima and his inability to use modern tech, keeping secrets safe from hackers since whenever hackers became a thing "They're on a more... analogue format."

"_**God, how old are you guys?"**_ Alibaba groaned through the distortion _**"Scan them, take a picture. Get them on your system. I'll take a look for her sake."**_

"And let me know who they are. It's not just your band of thieves involved in this any more."

"_**Apparently."**_ The voice finished before the line went dead. Daigo rocked back in his chair and swung his feet up on the desk. However accomplished this hacker was, he or she had failed to learn that if they were good at something, never do it for free. For the first time the Tojo Clan captain felt in control of the situation, and he'd found a way to bypass The Florists' price tags to boot. Even the sky at night seemed brighter.

Although that might have just been the light pollution.


	16. Chapter 16 - The Ultimate Challenge!

As the neon lights buzzed from every direction, Goro Majima looked over the Iwao Bridge with a gleam in his eye. With his two students in the way of ass-kicking behind him he pulled them to one side and revealed the ultimate challenge. The final exam of the Osakan Expedition. "You want us to just walk across the bridge? That it?" Ryuji asked, sounding disappointed as the Mad Dog revealed just what he had been hyping up as super dangerous all day "The old Kung-Fu guy was way better than this."

"It's not just walking across a bridge!" Majima barked "This is a test of your awareness and improvisation skills in dangerous situations." He declared, leaving Haru and Ryuji to look across the pedestrian bridge. It didn't look like a dangerous situation, unless you counted trying to dodge around people carrying unreasonably large stacks of shopping.

"I don't get it." Haru admitted with a sigh.

"That's because I haven't shown you the secret ingredient, sheesh! Give me a chance here kids," Majima grumbled as he turned around, pulling a package that had been discreetly tucked away "You won't just be walking across the bridge-" He began, pulling apart the cardboard and picking out what seemed to be a green and white Stajun "You'll be walking across in this!"

"Uhhh..." Ryuji let out, staring blankly at what seemed to be a normal sports jumper.

"Oh right, other side." Majima realised, spinning the garment around to let the logo on the back show. A demon's face with the challenge 'Bring On The Fights' in a bright red script.

If it was meant to impress, it had the opposite effect on the youth of today "Dude, how old is that?"

"I think it's... 60s?" the fluffy haired heiress guessed.

"It's 80s! I'm not that old... and it wasn't mine!" Majima snapped defensively, taking his time to clear his throat and start again "This jacket is guaranteed fight magnet: you walk across this bridge wearing it, some punk is gonna jump out and start something at which point, you kick his ass! In self-defence," he quickly added "Get to the end of the bridge and back, I'll be walking behind you just in case you end up out of your depth but I got faith! Anyone taking on my students is going on a one-way trip to the river!" The Mad Dog said with complete confidence "Now since Okumura-chan went first against Fei, you're up first Sakamoto-chan, make me proud." He finished, chucking the relic of a jacket at the blond's head, leaving him to struggle while he and Haru took their positions, crouching either side of the entrance to the bridge.

"God damn it..." Ryuji grumbled as he struggled to get the old garment on. The _thing_ stank of mothballs and dust, running his hand over the fabric made it feel like the dye had all dried and was about to fall off in as a bad case of wardrobe dandruff, but he'd only have to wear it once. With a collapsible baton hidden in one the sleeves, the delinquent made his way across the bridge.

"Any moment now..." Majima mumbled as he looked out to see who would be the most likely to throw a punch. There were a few burly types walking around Osaka, someone was bound to take offence that a blond kid was walking around with such a provocative jacket but with every step Ryuji took it looked less likely that anything was gonna happen.

"Well that was stupid." Ryuji said as he quickly unzipped the old jacket, holding it out for Haru to put on and run the non-existent gauntlet.

"I don't get it, that jacket was so bad there were hundreds of guys wanting to take a crack at someone for wearing it..." Majima whined.

"Maybe it was really bad fashion? Like really bad. I mean worse than it looks now bad."

"For the 80s? The decade that taste forgot? You could walk the streets in a disco dancing suit and no-one would notice. People did. I did! But that jacket's a guaranteed brawl starter!"

"How about you try it on, then," Haru suggested sweetly "Maybe we're too young for it to attract any attackers." she said, looking across at Ryuji with her eyebrows raised.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah!" Ryuji agreed, starting to piece things together "If it don't work on me, it's really not gonna work for Haru, so how about you start the fights and we be the backup."

"Like I need backup! But... yeah, you got a point." Majima conceded, taking and slinging on the jacket himself. He'd fought along this bridge multiple times across multiple decades, what was one more with a couple of impressionable youths in tow? The first steps were quiet for the eye-patch wearing mob boss as he walked along, his natural scary aura deterring any potential fights even with the jacket on.

Reaching the other side with a sigh, he turned around and sulked his way back, hands in his pockets, lost in his own world to the point that he didn't hear the suspicious giggling coming from two lamp posts on opposite sides over the water. Two figures pounced on Majima in a blur, taking the Yakuza down onto the paved surface with a painful smack, sending shock waves of surprised screeches through the crowd "ALRIGHT!" Majima cheered as he shook off his attackers and sprang back to his feet "I knew this damn thing still worked, so now you guys just entered a world of... pain..." His grand speech dwindling away as the laughter revealed just who his assailants were "God dammit."

"Sorry man!" Ryuji apologized in between bouts of wheezing laughter, dusting himself off as Majima rolled his eye at them.

"It was just... a little too tempting after today." Haru confessed, still in a fit of giggles.

"You damn brats," Majima groaned, slumping his shoulders "I do all the work and getting this trip set up for you and this is the thanks I get?" He demanded, only getting more laughter in return "This ain't that funny! I was gonna throw you off the bridge if it weren't you!"

"Everything alright here?" Came a new voice from behind the one eyed man. An official authority sounding voice, the type that would take offence to not using proper grammar in an explanation. Straightening up and spinning around Majima saw a young man and woman, both dressed in plain clothes but bearing a police ID on a lanyard around their necks and more unusually, bizarre hair colours. Majima knew he wasn't the most up and up on the latest in society but he would have thought that blue and silver hair was not acceptable in the police, even for detectives. Unless the guy with silver hair had prematurely gone grey in which case.

"Nothing wrong officers," he said as a small trickle of blood dripped down from his nose "Although I'm gonna have to find a store to get some pocket tissues. Had a cold but used too much nose spray, it happens." Majima explained unconvincingly as he wiped the red stream away from his lips.

"Geez, I thought you guys were supposed to be good at this sorta thing." Ryuji whispered behind him.

"Zip it," he whispered back before announcing loudly "So we'll be on our way, sorry for causing a little bit of a scene but no-one got hurt so we'll just-"

"You should probably stay until you tell us what all that screaming was about." The blue haired woman insisted in a way that made the words 'should probably' turn into 'or else'.

"Well you see..." Majima began awkwardly before he turned into a sprint, dashing through the human traffic and out of sight, leaving Ryuji and Haru to chase after him in a panic.

"Worth chasing them Naoto?" The silver haired detective asked.

"No, just some people being idiots Yu," Naoto Shirogane shrugged "Probably family or family-friends with how they were laughing before we showed up. They'll be too worried about the police to do anything else for a while." She concluded.

* * *

On the fast train back to Tokyo, Ryuji was struggling to fall asleep as they whizzed past miles of countryside. It wasn't as though the seat wasn't comfortable, it was a much better ride than travelling in the back of Majima's van, but something was keeping the blond awake. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush throughout the day that was keeping his eyes open, but Haru had done all the training he had and she was soundly asleep next to him.

No, what was bugging him was that Goro Majima who was supposed to be sitting opposite to them was nowhere to be seen. He didn't even mention what he was doing when he stepped out of his chair, he just up and left without a word. Perhaps "Left" was a strong term, since they passed Kyoto it was a non-stop train to Tokyo so there wasn't exactly a place the Mad Dog could leave to, but his disappearance was niggling away at the blond, causing him to quietly shuffle out of his own seat and look for the snakeskin wearing Yakuza.

It didn't take long at all to find Majima, in fact he was right outside the door to the next carriage when Ryuji came looking, the one-eyed man laying against the train wall, legs stretched across like a tripping hazard "Oh hey Sakamoto-chan," he sighed as he looked up "You should get some rest, school's gonna kick your ass if you don't."

"Won't work do the same to you?" Ryuji asked "At least my teach ain't gonna cut off a finger if I fall asleep in English."

"Yeah well... I'm already resting. It's too stuffy in there, am I right?" Majima replied with a small smile.

"I guess," the delinquent shrugged, slumping down next to the yakuza "Thanks for the weekend by the way."

"Huh?"

"Thanks, I mean it. Probably took a lot to set all this up for me and Haru and it was a dick move when we jumped you like that."

"Don't worry about it," Majima waved off, looking longingly at what seemed to be just a No Smoking sign before he spoke again "Ryuji," he began "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure? Go ahead Majima-san?" the blond answered, shocked that Majima of all people was just calling him by his first name.

"Ryuji..." Goro sighed, gloved hands ruffling his black hair "What the fuck am I doing?"

"Riding the express-"

"Not literally you idiot!" Majima snapped "I mean... this whole thing, training you, getting involved in your shit. You getting involved in mine."

"Oh..." was all Ryuji could say before Majima continued

"I'm a crook in my fifties and I'm runnin' round enemy territory with two teenagers playing like I'm some Hollywood movie coach building you up for a dodge-ball tourney or something. That's messed up."

"Well... we're not exactly not-messed up people."

"Yeah but... fuck, I've seen good girls, no, good _people_ get only slightly related to this Yakuza game and it just chews and spits them out if they're _lucky_... I know where this whole 'being a badass' shit leads and I'm pulling you two down with it. And don't say that it was Okumura-chan's idea to set up a formal freaking Majima Dojo because I should have been the adult in that room and said 'No that's fucking stupid' 'cause it is. I'm a best case scenario here and just look at me!" Majima demanded "The least this life has cost me was an eye."

"Majima... Goro..." Ryuji sighed, trying to think about what to say, what would Ren do to pick up the old man sitting next to him, and in that moment, Majima looked older than anyone Ryuji had ever met "You know why I punched that big guy a couple weeks back?"

"Who, Shakedown? He stole a purse didn't he?"

"Not just that." Ryuji added.

"Oh yeah... you got wound up because of me... right."

"It wasn't just because of you, well... I mean it kinda was... but the thing was, here was a guy that everyone thought was probably a piece of shit. Mainly 'cause you were working for Shido, nothing personal," the blond continued "I got worked up because I thought someone was doing something wrong and I couldn't do anything about it. It's why I lashed out at Kamoshida, why I became a Phantom Thief."

"Ryuji..."

"I know the consequences are gonna suck when they hit. At some point someone's gonna figure out that I've been working with a mobster four times my age, but honestly: I don't really care that much about me getting shit on, that's happened for pretty much my entire life. Heck, the freaking cat was chewing me out constantly."

"Three times... and what cat?" Majima asked, funk derailed by the idea of a trash talking cat.

"Oh, one of the Phantom Thieves is a cat."

"Who talks?"

"Well yeah... it's a long story. But the point is, whatever happens to me, as long as I can do some good out of it, as long as I can crack down on assholes and make people suffering under those assholes not feel like trash, it's worth it. And this whole yakuza badass training thing, it's part of it. I mean sure if I crack say... Haru's shitty ex-fiancée over the head with a bat I'm in deep shit, but at least I _can_ do that now. I'm not flailing like a limp noodle at something I can't do anything about, I can do shit about stuff even if the consequences are gonna bite me in the ass. I can take it, and maybe those assholes start thinking twice about messing with other people knowing I'm on their ass."

"I guess," Majima sighed, a small smile forming on his face as Ryuji settled down "Shitty ex-fiancée?"

"Oh yeah," Ryuji backtracked through his speech "She uh... before her dad... you know, he'd arranged a marriage with this rich asshole, like even before we started going out just looking at the guy I wanted to whack him a couple times."

"Sounds like a prick." Majima nodded

"He was. Her dad thought he was a total prick, and he set the damn thing up." Ryuji said, thinking back to Haru's awakening as a true persona user.

"Wow, what an asshole." the gangster whistled

"I know... still, it was her dad and... well... I don't know if nobody deserved what happened to him, but he probably didn't."the blond sighed, picking himself off the floor.

"Hey, Ryuji. You serious about sticking with this thing?" Majima asked.

"If you're gonna be serious about it too, and not put us in dumb jackets." Ryuji answered, stretching out as he headed towards the carriage door.

"Alright," Majima said as he stood up as well, following Ryuji back to their seats "More one on one training sessions with old masters, less random run ins with the cops. Got it Sakamoto-chan, will do."


	17. Chapter 17 - Back To Tokyo

After the thrills and spills of training in Osaka, it was hard to come back down to reality with it's rigid school schedule and chores and homework. It's enough to drive an already exhausted young man to fall asleep from boredom which was just what Ryuji did, taking what he intended to be a quick nap with his arms folded in front of his resting head only for the blond to suddenly feel very alert as his nose pressed against his desk.

A small white projectile was inbound as soon as he had slumped forward, the chalk missile that had sparked fear in so many students was now on a collision course with the delinquent's slumped skull. Ryuji, however, hadn't gone through training with legendary gangsters and old self-defence masters just to be beaned by a social studies teacher! Instincts kicked in as he swung back at the incoming chalk, backhanding the offending attack into the window frame to the shock of the class and faculty. Mr Ushimaru, to his credit, was fast to regain his composure "Well, Mr Sakamoto. Since you're clearly paying enough attention this lesson, perhaps you can answer the next question." He huffed.

"Aww man... stupid tiger instincts..." Ryuji groaned under his breath as he tried to recall something, anything about the subject at hand.

Even for those outside the normal school life, the return to a Tokyo schedule was hard work. Haru couldn't help but yawn as she looked at her laptop, pages on the classification of plants all blurring into one as she scrolled. Not even the standard energy boost that was a cup of coffee was going to be enough to get through today without snoozing off in an impromptu book fort "Makoto..." she groaned past the screen to her fellow phantom thief and current study-buddy "Can we call today a cheat day?" She asked, putting her weary eyes to use with a Puppy Dog look designed to melt even the coldest of hearts.

"Sunday was your cheat day." Makoto chided, showing that not every look did what it was designed for.

"That was a training day," Haru whined "Cheat days are ones where you don't have to do anything."

"You didn't have to go to Osaka." Makoto retorted, seeing just how much influence Ryuji had over the actions of the previously prim and proper heiress. She would have never seen Haru whinging over work before they were an item.

"Alright... but this isn't working," Haru groaned as she went back to her research before a buzzing in her pocket provided some form of distraction for her rapidly depleting attention span "Futaba... shouldn't you be in school?" the fluffy haired young woman asked as she answered the phone.

"_**It's lunch break. Leave off."**_ Was the terse reply over the phone.

"Is it lunch time? Oh... so it is." the heiress yawned, still feeling as though it was breakfast time.

"_**Not the point! Is there a limo around you right now?"**_ Futaba began in a hurried whisper.

"We're indoors, why would there be a limo?" Haru asked, looking around the room as Makoto perked up.

"Futaba's asking about a limousine?" Makoto asked, folding down her own laptop screen.

"Yes she is, I don't know why though."

"_**Is that Makoto with you? Screw it. Going to text chat!"**_

"Well yes she is, we're at the same-" Haru tried to explain before the dial tone cut her off "Why did she hang up on me?" the brunette wondered before the phone buzzed right next to her ear. She had none of the energy to deal with this.

_**Finally, we can talk like humans. With Words. And Emoticons :P **_Was the message on both Makoto's and Haru's phone.

"That's why." Makoto answered before typing in her response. _**Is this about the limo that's been stalking Haru?**_ She typed in.

"There's been something stalking me?" Haru gasped.

_**How'd you know?**_ Came the text response

_**It's not exactly subtle. I was going to ask you to look into it later.**_ Makoto messaged back before bringing her head back up "It'll be easier if we're all using the chat, instead of trying a two layer conversation."

"Oh, right." _**There's been something stalking me? :( **_Haru typed in.

_**Yes! Ever since you and your dumb blonde started hanging out with the Yaks there's been a limo following you on campus. **_Futaba answered

_**They don't like being called that, it's very rude.**_ Haru replied.

_**Who cares what their Brooklyn 99 loving asses like being called! **_Futaba yelled through the medium of punctuation.

_**Their what? **_Makoto interjected.

_**Oh, their boss loves Brooklyn 99. IDGI but according to Ann if you speak English it's super funny. He was also a fan of Akechi's show. But that's not important! **_Futaba furiously tried to get back on topic **_Lunch isn't that long here!_**

_**How do you know this? **_Haru asked. **_Are you spying on them?_**

_**They're spying on us. They dug up the out phansite and started snooping around. That's why they don't remember the PTs, 'cause everyone who used that site got hit by the big cup's brain wave.**_

_**So it's nothing that they at one point didn't already have. Worrying that we might have been doing their dirty work indirectly but if they weren't hostile to us then, there's no reason for them to change now.**_ Makoto typed out, breathing a sigh of relief that her involvement was going unnoticed.

_**Well yeah but... grgrah BACK ON TOPIC :( That limo's being used by your shittty ex Haru! **_Futaba announced to the private conversation.

**Sugi... su...** Makoto began to type out before giving up on recalling his name _**That guy? What does he want?**_

_**What does any rich asshole with a grudge want? He's clearly out to get our precious Floof. **_Futaba replied.

_**Okay, so... do you think Majima would know what to do about it? **_Haru asked, before looking up into the wide eyed glare of Makoto Niijima "He might." She said defensively.

_**Uh, he might. And it'd probably involve a shallow grave or an acid pit. Not a good idea. Keep him as just the wacky martial arts teacher guy you and Ryuji have.**_

_**Shallow grave has its appeal. **_Haru typed out with the expression of a mildly annoyed cartoon sheep.

_**Moving on from premeditated murder... **_Makoto messaged with a worried look. **_The best course of action is probably to keep our distance and give nothing away. He has the resources but not the sense to use them wisely and will either give up on whatever he was trying to do, or he escalates and then we can potentially get Saejima involved._**

_**Majima. **_Was the one word reply from Futaba.

_**Maybe she means Sae and Majima?**_ Haru suggested

_**Yes. I thought of my sis, then Majima, typing didn't work out. Is it still Lunchtime over there? **_

_**No you didn't. I know who Saejima is, I have their boss' haxed. Everyone's getting cool crim mentors but me (V_V) Inari's gonna be part of an anarchist painting group and Morgana's gonna lead a cat gang in Inaba.**_ Futaba whined.

_**You could come with Ryuji and I to Majima's training. **_Haru suggested.

_**Effort. And not the point! Be careful out there if they do anything stupid. BRB. **_Read the last message before Futaba disappeared from the digital space, letting the two college students dwell on what just happened, namely Makoto cringing away from Haru's suddenly beaming smile.

"Don't." The Queen of the Phantom Thieves warned.

"I thought you weren't associating with gangsters?" Haru asked sweetly.

"I'm not associating. We just happen to share a common goal and pose no threat to each other." Makoto insisted.

"So you're working together to protect me?" She asked again.

"Well, yes. But-"

"Aww, that's so sweet you're willing to put your reputation at risk like that for me. Thank you!"

"It's not like... well, it's a little like that," Makoto conceded as Haru leaned over the table to give her a quick hug, sighing as she patted her friend on the back "And you're right... it is kind of exciting working with them." She admitted.

"So you'll come to training!?" Haru asked eagerly.

"No," Makoto refused, flinching as Haru retaliated with a close range blast of the Puppy Eyes "...Not yet anyway. We're being stalked by someone with enough connections to make our lives very awkward. So we'll deal with them first, then I'll think about joining in." The strategist said, letting the heiress slide back into her own chair with a pleased look.

* * *

Meanwhile across the city, Yusuke was busy working on an essay on impressionism when his phone buzzed unexpectedly.

_**Inari, are you a member of an anarchist paint group? **_Was the surprise question from Futaba

_**Was,**_ Yusuke answered, a sinister smile coming across his face **_But then someone tried to set up a hierarchy of tones and the whole thing collapsed into a row about the appropriate shade of red to use when depicting fire bombs._**

_**ARGERHERSADSFHHADHEAH SCREW ALL OF YOU CRIMINAL SCUM INARI! **_Came the response as the artist set his phone to silent and continued with his work.


	18. Chapter 18 - Interrupted Calls

The bell in Leblanc rang gently as Daigo Dojima walked calmly in, Tojo clan button hidden in his front pocket as he sat down at the bar, indistinguishable from any other high class businessman in his black suit and red shirt, sighing deeply as he took a glance at his phone. This out of the way cafe was where Alibaba had told him to visit if he wanted the information from one of the Phantom Thief brats but so far, nothing. "Can I get you anything?" The bearded barista asked.

"Just a small cappuccino, please." Daigo requested, reaching in for his wallet as he scanned the cafe in the humdrum of a mid-week afternoon. A mixture of exhausted salarymen who'd dodged the obligatory after-work drinks, students trying to get some extra studying done outside of school, one of which could only be seen by their bright orange hair in amongst the fort of books and computer equipment, the exam season seemed to get rougher and longer every year by the sound of furious typing and frustrated snarls coming from.

"Do you have a preferred blend of coffee?" The older man asked.

"Just something mild." The Chairman responded, going for the safe option instead of openly admitting he didn't really know the difference between blends of coffee while he took a seat. He knew there was differences with booze like what it was stored in, maybe it was the same with coffee? Either way, the barista seemed satisfied enough with the answer while his phone buzzed into life.

"Hello." He answered flatly, an unknown number but a familiarly distorted voice coming through.

"_**You weren't followed?"**_ Came the digitally manipulated reply of Alibaba.

"No. No-one besides you at any rate." Daigo answered, he wasn't a novice on the streets, but whoever Alibaba was must have seen him come in.

"_**Good. Enjoy the coffee here. Maybe get some food while you're at it."**_

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Dojima scowled, wondering what the hacker brat was playing at. A quick twist with the excuse of trying to see what all the miscellaneous wall fillers that appear in cafes and restaurants the same way mold does in damp cellars were about didn't reveal much. Those that were talking were engaged in a deep conversation, the barista was busy with his order and the student in fort knowledge was furiously typing out an assignment by the sounds of things "But we should focus our efforts on the joint project."

"_**Affirmative," **_came the reply after a brief pause, not even a sigh from Alibaba **_"This should be the end of our deals. You stay out of us, we stay out of you." _**

Daigo's eyebrows raised in confusion. Alibaba seemed to be speaking a lot more disjointedly than before, and what he or she was saying was a little less coherent than when he'd been first contacted by the hacker "Is this a bad line?" He asked. Another pause as the general noise in the cafe seemed to jump up, from the TV in the corner to the general music being played louder. The barista sighed in annoyance but continued on regardless, it didn't seem to be the first time this sort of thing had happened from his reaction as he finished pouring out the hot drink.

"_**Don't act clever, Dojima," **_Alibaba chided, seeming to revert to a normal speech pattern **_"I don't want any more Yakuza hanging around than there already is."_**

"Agreed." Daigo replied with an annoyed sigh of his own. This whole thing was just turning into a rabbit hole, even if it came with good coffee.

"_**So, our mutual eavesdropper is a piece of shit called Sugimura, kicker of cats, abuser of girlfriends and overall rich asshole. Although it's his goon squad doing the heavy lifting here, but they're pretty much working directly with the jerkface." **_Alibaba explained.

"I see," the Tojo chairman said. Well, at least they had a name to tie in with all of this but that level of venom... "Do you have prior experiences with him?"

"_**Yeah, he's a dick."**_

"Beyond that." Daigo sighed, nodding as the barista passed over his order while he reached over for the sugar packets.

"_**Beyond that, he's got a father who was in the Diet hoping to ride high on the Shido train, until **_**that **_**got derailed."**_ Alibaba elaborated in an accusing tone, even through the distortion.

"I... see," it all came back to the terms of their early release then. The concealed hostility rather than the expected fear. From what he'd gathered from Majima the Phantom Thieves were already well acquainted with the former Prime Minister's crimes, of which Daigo and the rest of the Tojo clan leadership were part of "I'd like to assure you that our relationship with him was barely a professional one. We're as thankful for your actions as anyone," he said smoothly "But back to our mutual difficulty."

"_**Right, right," **_now it was Alibaba's time to sigh _**"Apart from who he is, no-one is sure what he's doing stalking our mutual friends. Other than he's got his heavies doing it and we'd rather he'd not."**_

"So, do you have any plans for this situation? Or are we supposed to handle it ourselves?" Daigo asked in between drinks of coffee.

"_**What? No!"**_ Came the sharp reply, even with the voice masker there was a definite high pitched squeak in there, something even the barista seemed to notice with how he stiffened up _**"The last thing either of us need is the attention we'd get if a rich boy with an unhealthy obsession ends up buried in the woods."**_

As snappy as Alibaba was being, Daigo had to admit that whoever the hacker was, they had a point. This Sugimura was a problem, but one that required a more subtle approach than a simple removal and those required specifics that couldn't be mentioned in public. Still, blatant stalking like this wasn't something that could be easily ignored. "One moment," he said. Folding the phone away and turning to the barista "Excuse me, but do you have any facilities here?" He asked, calmly leaving his seat when pointed in the right direction. The men's restroom wasn't much more than two sinks, a hand dryer and a few toilet cubicles, but at least in here the Tojo clan chairman could check for hidden cameras and bugs before locking himself in the cubicle and waiting for the call.

It took a surprising amount of time for Daigo's phone to start ringing again, letting the Yakuza boss smirk a little, Alibaba must have bugged and set cameras on the main floor of the cafe but he or she hadn't been dedicated enough to do the same for the restrooms, his shoulders slacked as he answered the phone "I haven't escaped out the back if that's what you're wondering."

"_**I know."**_ came the manipulated voice on the other end, different number, same semi-anonymous hacker.

"It's easier to talk about these matters with a degree of privacy," the Chairman shrugged off "And this matter isn't easily dismissed. Even if this Sugimura is as competent as he is subtle, it's still stalking and that isn't something that should be ignored. Not to mention, if he has a father in the Diet, then he'd be connected enough to make any on campus security or even the police ineffectual."

"_**His dad **_**used**_** to be in the Diet."**_ Alibaba corrected.

"Another fallout from Shido?" Daigo asked.

"_**No, he just lost his seat on election night to Toranosuke Yoshida."**_

"No good Tora!? He lost a seat to 'No good Tora'?" Daigo laughed. The guy who'd publicly called all voters idiots while he was supposed to be apologising for embezzling public funds had not only worked his way back to the Diet but at the expense of this rich brat Sugimura's father? Karma did work in strange ways it seemed.

"_**Knock it off!"**_ Alibaba scolded.

"Sorry, sorry," Daigo apologized as he attempted to regain composure. Here he was: Chairman of one of the most powerful Yakuza clans in all of Japan, locked in a bathroom while a teenager scolded him over the phone, not his proudest moment "So what are you planning to do about him? Even without the direct connection and miss Okumura's own wealth, it'll be hard to deal with him on your own."

"_**For now, we're gonna wait until we figure out more of why he's decided that now's the time to restart his creep career, and then if he does something stupid..."**_

"Define 'stupid'." Daigo retorted.

"_**90% of what Majima has done in the past month." **_Alibaba sighed.

"...Fair," Daigo conceded with a smirk on his face, only for it to drop when the line suddenly died in a hellish electronic screech "The hell?"

* * *

Makoto knew that she'd been pushing her luck with her surveillance efforts. Between the punishing grind of college, her own fitness routine and trying to keep a watchful eye on the hired goons, something was going to go wrong, and so far her graded assignments hadn't dipped a single point.

Something must have tipped off whoever Sugimura was hiring to do this, as she tried to inconspicuously move away from the two men in dark suits, equipped with black sunglasses and earpieces as they approached her on the campus, everyone else trying their best to avoid the situation as much as possible. "Excuse us miss, but can we have a moment of your time?" One said as they managed to somehow flank the student.

"I'm very busy right now," Makoto replied in a level voice, looking up at the security camera overlooking the area, trying to make sure she was in direct view "So if you could just let me pass-"

"I'm afraid it's an urgent matter Niijima-san, it's about your friend and..." the hired thug paused to see if anyone was listening in, a wandering student scurrying along extra fast from the concealed glare and menacing expression "As much as this may be difficult to explain, your friend, Miss Okomura has been associating with some dangerous individuals and we're wondering if you could help us make sure she's all right. We're with the company."

"Why are you talking to me and not her?" Makoto asked as a giant shadow suddenly started to loom from the corner.

"Because it may be easier for to understand the danger, both physically and economically if the advice comes from a friend. So if you'd just come with us and we can explain more on the way to the head-quarters." The other goon began, slowly reaching out as the shadow was suddenly over all of them, a little bit of darkness before the goon who'd tried to reach out suddenly found himself forced face-first into the pavement.

"W-what the!?" His partner yelped as he turned to see what just happened. The massive frame of Taiga Saejima had blocked out the sun and with one movement of his arm he hadn't just grabbed the back of the hired help's head, but drove him down as well, the earpiece popping out as his glasses shattered.

"Why don't you take me there?" The big man asked, crushing the ear piece under his boot "So I can say hello to your boss in person."

"S-stand back!" The remaining conscious goon yelped, stepping back as he reached into his pocket, Makoto only saw the yellow lightning bolt logo on the side of the plastic rectangle before she sprang into action, reaching out to grab him by the wrist "What-the?" The suited goon let out as he realised that the student wasn't a passive observer, but another fighter with a painful grip on his wrist "Argh!" He cried out, a stun gun tumbling out of his grasp as Makoto twisted her grasp, giving Saejima enough time to deliver the same treatment he gave the first one. Grabbing a fist full of hair before yanking down with enough force to send him on a one-way trip to the curb.

Surveying the carnage he'd laid out, Saejima gave an appreciative nod to the panting Makoto "Good job." He said simply.

"Thanks," the Queen of the phantom thieves nodded back as she looked down on the two goons "Should have known they'd try something. That stun gun was probably for me if I didn't co-operate."

"Probably," the Tojo captain agreed as he started to haul the unconscious goons away "Hopefully this'll be a learning experience for them."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Send 'em packing to their boss with a little message, since they were armed it makes covering things a lot easier. Can't go to the cops if the first question they're gonna ask is 'so what were you doing?' Weapons on a campus ain't gonna go down well even with the most corrupt of assholes." Saejima explained as he threw one onto his shoulder, carrying the second like a suitcase.

"Good," Makoto said, still feeling the adrenaline as she scanned to see if there were any witnesses, thankfully the goons had already done most of the work in scaring people away, leaving only... the security camera "Not good!" she squeaked as she dived for her phone

"Huh?" Saejima let out, before he realised what she was looking at "...Crap."

"I've got it under control!" Makoto assured him as she hit up the best person to ask. "Oracle, do you read me?"

"_**I'm in the middle of something here."**_ Futaba snapped through the voice changer.

"I need you to access Tokyo campus security and wipe the footage of the last five minutes." Makoto demanded

"_**What? Why?"**_

"Because two thugs just tried to jump me, Saejima saved me and the whole thing was caught on camera."

"_**Argg! Five minutes!"**_ Futaba groaned before hanging up.

"Situation is under control." She announced, slipping her phone away with a thumbs up as Saejima carried the goons away.

* * *

Daigo was already walking out of the cafe in a state of confusion, the student behind the wall of books getting increasingly angry with something as he passed, still looking at his phone before it buzzed as he was on the doorstep. "Moshi-moshi?"

"_**Change of plans. They did something stupid. Call the big guy to find out more."**_

* * *

**A/N: Finally got this out. Apparently this got onto the recomended fics page of TvTropes so... no pressure I guess?**


	19. Chapter 19 - Two Groups, One Brain Cell

When Daigo Dojima summoned his two most reliable captains to inform them of who had been spying on them, they took it pretty well all things considered. Goro Majima didn't yell, he didn't screech, he calmly asked to be excused while he went and fed a young man his own liver. "No, Majima, we're not killing him." The chairman sighed.

"Oh come on!" Majima snapped "We gotta send some message that we ain't tolerating this shit!"

"...I kinda did," Saejima confessed as everyone turned to him "This guy's goon squad tried to pull something with one of Okomura's friends, I put a stop to it and sent 'em packing in their own limo."

"The hell? When did that happen?" the Mad Dog demanded.

"That would likely have been when Alibaba changed his tune about our involvement," Daigo nodded "He did say they'd done something stupid."

"And that friend got on the phone to someone, saying they'd take care of the cameras for us, probably the same hacker." Saejima elaborated.

"Why am I being left out of this crap!? This creep's coming after my students and I'm the last to know about it?" Majima complained as the two continued their conversation regardless

"So what's the plan boss?" Saejima continued "Can't go straight to the source as easy as we could before."

"Fortunately you've already provided the outline of it. This Sugimura doesn't know how to run these operations smoothly, and he's prone to thinking that his wealth and connections can buy his way out of trouble. We just need to capitalize on that immaturity." Daigo explained, tapping the top of his desk with a pen while Majima continued his protests.

"Hello!?" the one-eyed man waved while Saejima scowled

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we bait him into acting personally and not just through hired help, then we're free to send a message the old fashioned way." the Tojo clan chairman concluded with a sinister grin.

"So where we gonna lure him to? Bit obvious if we pull him here."

* * *

Meanwhile in a cramped bedroom on the other side of the city, an eerily similar conversation was taking place. "Why the eff am I the last person to find out about this crap!?" Ryuji demanded as Futaba finished explaining the situation.

"Perhaps she thought it best knowing your temperament." Yusuke suggested with characteristic subtlety.

"My temper-mint is fine!" Ryuji insisted "I just gotta go beat the shit out of him 'cause he's creeping on us."

"Weren't you listening?" Futaba scowled "The whole point of us all being here is so that you don't have to go and fight the goon squad Sugimura's got. We have our own goons doing that now."

"They're not goons, they've been really helpful." Haru jumped in.

"I dunno, the construction site guys are definitely goons..." Ryuji admitted before working himself up again "But still! It's us who this jackass has a problem with, we should be the ones kicking his ass!"

"Making sure he's not gonna come back's a bigger deal then you getting to kick him in the dick, Ryuji." Ann interjected.

"I know..." Ryuji sighed, his shoulders slumping.

"Actually..." Makoto began, turning everyone's attention to her. Normally she was the voice of reason in these discussions "Futaba, do you know why Sugimura's acted now? Any specifics?"

"Other than him being a creep?" The orange haired hacker asked back.

"Yes, if he's only started to move since you started associating with the Tojo clan, he has to have some idea as to why that's a significant development."

"Wait... what?" Ryuji blinked.

"He knows who the Yakuza are, and he's trying to use that against Haru somehow," Makoto simplified "So if they're going to deal with him themselves, he might just come back when he thinks it's safe."

"But if we're the ones who beat him up..." Haru began as she and Ryuji smiled wildly at the future police officer.

"Then he'd know it's _us _who he shouldn't mess with, not just Majima and the gang." Ryuji continued on the same train of thought.

"And then we'll be in the clear!" They both cheered.

"Makoto, what the hell? Why are you encouraging this crap?" Ann complained "Usually you're the first girl to point out when we're being idiots."

"I know," Makoto sighed "Just... it'll be over faster this way. We're already too heavily involved to try and step back now."

"Man, all this training's gonna pay off, can't wait to see the look on his face when we start whooping his ass!" Ryuji declared, fists clenched with the widest grin on his face.

"Do you think it's a good idea to get the axe out now?" Haru asked, smiling just as hard at the prospect "Ooh! We can do it at my place! The hall has to be big enough for all of us, right?"

"Yeah! All our gear's there too so we don't even have to worry about lugging it cross Tokyo."

"See what you've done?" Ann gestured to the two students of the Majima dojo working themselves into a frenzy in Futaba's bedroom.

"I don't see a problem with Makoto's reasoning, it makes sense to make us appear the more direct threat to Sugimura." Yusuke conceded.

"I just wish they'd be more focussed about it," Makoto said with an air of resignation "This isn't going to be a fun excursion like whatever you did in Osaka!" She snapped "This is likely going to be a real fight, so you better be prepared for it. Like the last day of a palace."

"Yes Ma'am!" Ryuji stiffened.

* * *

Fed up of being talked past for the past five minutes, Majima decided it was time to take this conversation into his own hands and give his brother and his boss something to think about "Okay since you two assholes are busy in your own fucking world, how about we set up the ambush at Okumura's place. It's big and fancy enough that no-one's gonna think twice about some rich brat showing up for a regularly scheduled beat down."

"Majima, part of this idea was to minimize the Phantom Thieves' involvement." Daigo sighed.

"Yeah and I can tell you that it ain't gonna work if they're not part of it. Think about it," the one eyed man sighed "They know enough about me to know that I'm not the type of guy prim and proper young ladies should be associating with, so he'd know I'd kick his ass for this shit on principle, and now they can add Taiga here to that, right?"

"What's your point, bro?" Saejima asked, sitting back as he kicked his feet up onto a nearby coffee table, ignoring the dirty look he got.

"They ain't afraid of trying to put the screws into a bunch of teenagers, but know we're scary as hell. So us giving him something to think about ain't gonna do shit 'cause he should know the risks already. So what happens when the kids he thinks he's above kick the crap out of him instead? Now he knows not just to not mess with us, but not to mess with Okumura, Sakamoto-chan or any of their friends!" Majima explained.

As much as the Tojo clan captain wanted to say it was stupid, he had to concede "You've got a point."

"I do? Course I do!" Majima cheered in the face of the sighing Dojima.

"Three of them against whatever heavies Sugimura brings in? Probably not the worst odds, but we'd better stick around as backup." Saejima nodded.

"Three?" Daigo repeated, staring a hole in the big man.

"I only got two students bro," Majima pointed out "Unless they were _really_ careless in Osaka."

"Well... you know that they tried jumping one of the Phantoms? Well, she helped kick their asses too and not just deal with the cameras." Taiga admitted sheepishly.

"Hah! Bet that was a sight," Majima chuckled, shuffling over to his blood brother "What did you two get up to? Did you hold em up while she worked them over? Kick a guy back and forth like a volleyball? Or did she do a jumping punch after climbing and launching off you?" he asked, poking the bigger man in the ribs with every idea.

"Knock it off!" Taiga yelled, shoving the laughing Majima away "She just twisted a guys arm while I smashed him to the curb. Nothing fancy but it worked."

"Bah, there's no creativity there." Majima sighed from his position on the office carpet.

"I'm just saying, she kept cool during it and she'd probably want to make sure her friends weren't in too deep personally, maybe see if she wants in or not." He explained.

"Alright, but it has to be their decision," Daigo decided "If they don't want us involved any more than we're not so-" he began before his declaration was interrupted by the sweet sounds of 24 Hour Cinderella "Majima. Put your god damn phone on vibrate when you're in a meeting." He sighed.

"Sorry boss," Majima apologised, looking appropriately sorry before brightening up for who he was talking to "Okumura-chan! Me and the bosses were just talking about you. Wait, no. That sounds bad. Start again. We were just talking about you! ...aargh, still sounds wrong. Anyway, what's up?"

"_**We were talking about you too Majima, Ryuji's here as well."**_ Came the high pitched and overall fluffy voice of Haru Okumura.

"Ah, cool, cool. So when are you both free next? Can't be slacking now!" He continued as Dojima turned to look out of the window to try and calm himself while Majima violated every decorum protocol in the clan

"_**Actually, that's part of what I called about. Can we bring another person with us? She's met you already so it's not as if I'm breaking a secret by inviting her."**_

"Would this be a respectable college student who twisted a grown man's arm off?" Majima asked back.

"_**Makoto! Did you twist a man's arm off? …She says she only twisted it to disarm and it didn't come off."**_ Came the reply, with a background of _"DUDE"_ shouted in the background.

"Ah well, gossip evolves in strange ways, but sure she can join in. Sounds like she's already trained up a bit, which is good. Won't have to start from scratch again."

"_**Great! We'll be free on Saturday afternoon. We'll need the best training you can give!"**_

"And you'll get it!" Majima agreed, pumping his spare hand into the air "But uh, anyway... about what's been going on and around suit guys getting pummelled..." he began, trying to take the opportunity to suggest his idea.

"_**Oh, yes. We actually had an idea of how to deal with Sugimura, instead of letting you do all the hard work."**_

"You did?" Majima shouted, standing up straight "I mean, what's the idea?"

"_**We were planning of luring him to my house, then we beat him up!"**_

"Really? Your place. Sounds like a good idea Okumura-chan. Do you want me and the boys to help out when it happens?" Announced Majima to the other Tojo Clan leaders with the smuggest grin imaginable, now Saejima was tempted to pitch the ashtray at him to wipe it off.

"_**I'm glad you like it!"**_ Haru cheered, her own smugness on display to the rest of the Phantom Thieves _**"But we'll need to get some more training in first, just to make sure we're ready. See you Saturday?"**_

"Saturday it is! I'll make sure there's equipment for everyone. See you then, and we'll work out when the cafe can get started okay? Bye!" Majima said, hanging up.

"Taiga..." Daigo Dojima sighed after a few seconds, still looking out the window "Is he doing that stupid dance?"

"...Yeah." Saejima sighed as Majima let his victory hustle continue.


	20. Chapter 20 - The Old Career

Three red gi jackets were laid out carefully across the desk in the cramped office of Majima Construction, different sizes for different wearers but all bearing the beautiful logo of a Hanya mask on a field of flowers on the back, the words _**MAJIMA DOJO**_ written in yellow kanji below, its brightness only matched by the beaming smile of Goro Majima looking down at his designs. These had cost a fair bit to meet his very specific design specifications, his own martial arts uniforms needed to have extra padding to deal with the weapons that got thrown around, but also needed to be light enough to be dramatically discarded for the full effect, and the artist's silence needed to be paid so he didn't make it obvious that he was doing design work for the Yakuza, all things that cost money and looking at them now: it was money well spent.

"You really went for it..." Taiga Saejima sighed, looking over the Mad Dog's shoulder with a weary eye.

"Course I did!" Majima proudly proclaimed as he delicately folded them back into the packaging "You know me bro, never one to half-ass shenanigans. These bad boys are gonna make wiping that smug smirk off that rich prick's face all the sweeter." he plotted.

"You've never met the guy," Saejima pointed out "How d'ya know he's smug?"

"He's a rich brat who's also an ass, smugness is like part of the pre-requisites. Or however you say it... deal. Part of the whole deal! Yeah." Majima rambled as he slowly slipped the uniforms back into the box, pulling out a roll of tape to re-seal it when the door was burst down.

"Boss!" One of the workers called as the sudden jolt caused said boss to tape his arm to the box.

"Yuta! What the fuck is it? There's a god damn meeting going on here!" Majima snapped, as he tried to cut himself free.

"It's-uh-erm-" Yuta stumbled, he had entered in enough of a panic already, he didn't need an enraged Mad Dog making things worse.

"Spit it out!" The Tojo captain shrieked as he sliced the tape off his jacket.

"T-the client's here!" Yuta blurted out under the pressure, apologetically bowing before sprinting out in sheer terror.

Majima stood in silence as Yuta fled, any annoyance and anger had fled with him, replaced by panic of his own "Shit." He whispered, knife clattering to the floor.

"Goro?" Saejima asked as the Patriarch of the Majima family stood there staring at the closed door.

"SHIT!" the eyepatch wearer shrieked, scrambling down on the floor to retrieve the knife and slot it away "Shit, fucking shit, god damn shit!" he yelled, throwing the box of uniforms that he had been so careful with otherwise straight at his blood brother "You gotta get outta here." He panted, opening up one of the many secret components and retrieving his black suit jacket and red shirt, even pulling out the Tojo clan pin from the lapel for good measure.

Saejima stood there as Majima spun himself into a frenzy, the cardboard box bouncing off his chest and into his hands "What's the big deal? You're not that far behind schedule are you?" He asked, only getting a nod from the increasingly pale Majima "What did you do?"

"I didn't mean the schedule to get so screwed like this!" The one-eyed man desperately explained as he buttoned up his jacket"Between the stuff with the stuff and getting the advertising campaign going things slipped."

"Tell 'em there's been delays." Saejima dismissed.

"It ain't that simple bro, they've got like a living lie detector with them, I can't just bullshit my way through this like I could with you or Daigo." Majima lamented as he did something Saejima hadn't seen him do for as long as he'd known him, he started going through his short hair with a comb.

"We see through your bullshit too."

"Yeah, but... argh! Just get out of here before it's too-" Majima hissed as he tried to shove the much bigger man out of the door, only stopping when the giant got far enough down the steps for the owner and man responsible for Majima Construction could see over his shoulder and see the three ladies in dark suits in front of the big man "-late." he mumbled out.

"Good afternoon Majima-san." Came the polite but authoritative voice of the woman in front, her long red hair cascading down over a side of her face but it did nothing to take away from the fire in her eyes. Quite the contrast from the blank expression of the blue-eyed woman on her right, bearing short blonde hair and apparently wearing headphones while on business yet still managing to hear every word spoken. At least her opposite with the long blue ponytail had the honestly to look openly annoyed that this was still a construction site and not a fully furnished office building.

"Kirijo-han!" Majima cheered, quickly slapping on a blatantly false smile as he jumped ahead of his blood brother "What a pleasant surprise! I was just talking with my... brother... here about a few things but right now, he _really_ needs to go back to his delivery work. Hence the package," He ad-libbed, poking the cardboard box. "So, make sure that goes to who need it, don't let me hold you here!" The one-eyed man declared as he tried to get Saejima to move on and fast.

"Don't feel rushed for our sake, we can wait if needed." Mitsuru Kirijo said coolly as Taiga started to really get the impression that he shouldn't be here, for his sake.

"It's okay, I should get back to work. Sorry for the hold up ma'am." The big man said, carrying the Dojo uniforms with him to the nearest bus stop.

"So, ladies, if you'd like to step right in," Goro offered, holding the door open for the three woman and assembling as many chairs as he could, even if it meant he was spending the whole impromptu meeting squatting down behind his desk "So how can I be of-"

"Majima-han, what the shit!?" The blue haired one demanded, pounding a deceptively heavy fist on the table.

"Labrys," Mitsuru cautioned, letting the Osakan-accented assistant settle back in her chair, puffing out her cheeks like a child while the adults got down to business "Majima Goro, from the timetable you provided us, I was lead to believe that a majority of the work would be finished by now." She explained, letting the obvious not-finished nature of the site go unsaid.

"Even accounting for standard delays and potential disputes with labour and suppliers, we would expect the external work to be complete by the beginning of the School Summer holidays, from your current position it appears that that will not happen." The blonde explained, not quite in a monotone voice but an excruciatingly calm one. He preferred to be yelled at than deal with the Rain Woman over here.

"I admit there have been... complications with construction," he said, trying to pick his words carefully while the blonde and the redhead studied him "But none that would require the CEO herself to make the journey all the way from Port Tatsumi Island."

"What complications?" Mitsuru asked pointedly.

"Well, there's been a real problem with one of the features on the sub-basement floor," so many that it was part of his reasoning for blowing off a lot of the work even before Ryuji got a career week placement "You see, this complex here is raising a lot of questions and I'm not sure how to answer them without saying 'it's a fight pit.'" He explained, pulling out the blueprints.

"Fight... pit?" The blonde asked, a crack in the mask showing genuine surprise, Mitsuru on the other hand, narrowed her eyes sharply at the diagram. There it was, in all of it's glory: re-enforced walls and descending floor, there was even a note attached to the diagram with the instruction to install a 'Press here for cage match' button.

"I think I understand," Mitsuru said, venom starting to drip into her words "Why did you not contact us if this was being a bottleneck?"

"Well, uh, like I said, it's just a case of finding people who are gonna put that much metal into the walls, as well as buying the stuff. I mean, it _was_ included on the quote that was approved so I assume you still want it, but it's just gonna take a lot longer than we thought it was gonna."

"I see. Aigis, make a note of the handwriting on this note would you?" She asked, softening her expression when looking at Majima but staring a hole in the paperwork.

"Agreed, would you like me to contact the culprit now?" the blonde asked in a level tone, although her eyes were starting to look nervous as well.

"No, he can wait." Mitsuru practically spat.

"So do you not want the fight pit?" Majima asked.

"We've already paid the deposit, we might as well find some use for it."

"Great!" Majima clapped his hands as he tried to ignore the pain in his legs, thank god for her being obscenely rich both in company terms and personally "So will you be wanting larger stands for it or is the small observation room noted here fine?"

"The observa-" Mitsuru began before the chirpy tones of 24 Hour Cinderella interrupted the meeting. Majima's eye wandered over to his own phone on the edge of his desk, but the thing hadn't budged, instead the blonde just sighed as the blue-haired young woman gave a cringing grin.

"Sorry," Labrys apologized as she pulled her own phone "Yosuke!" She cheered, rushing over to a corner as though that would make the slightest bit of difference at her volume, at least it allowed Majima to sneak around and grab her chair "Is Sanada still over there? You are not gonna believe how much trouble he's in with- he did what? In broad daylight? And what happened?!" She chatted like a high-schooler before nervously turning to Mitsuru "Um... Kirijo-han, we've got a situation out in the sticks.

"Never a dull moment," Mitsuru sighed standing up "Apologies for the intrusion Majima-san, I hope the requisition efforts goes better, but do not hesitate to contact Aegis here if problems continue." She announced, turning to leave.

"Goodbye, Majima-san." Aigis said, bowing before following her boss.

"Sorry 'bout yelling earlier, bye!" Labrys apologised as she waved goodbye.

"Bye," Majima waved, waiting for the door to click shut before he slumped down in the chair, breathing an immense sigh of relief as he kicked his aching legs up on the desk "Well... shit." he mumbled to himself, peering out of the window to watch the exceptionally long white limousine leave his site before he got back to work "LISTEN UP PEOPLE!" He yelled through a megaphone "TURNS OUT THAT THING IN THE BASEMENT THAT I SAID WAS BULLSHIT AND WE COULD JUST FORGET ABOUT? TURNS OUT IT WASN'T SO GET CRACKING! SHOW THAT MAJIMA CONSTRUCTION SPIRIT!" he demanded as everyone on site immediately reached for their own pack of cigarettes or barely concealed bottle of booze "NOT LIKE THAT YOU ASSHATS!" Majima screeched. And to think today had started out so well for him.


	21. Chapter 21 - The Training Grind

The words "What am I doing?" kept bouncing around Makoto's head as she made her way to the Okumura residence on auto-pilot and not just because of the damage some of the roads had suffered under years of traffic. Here she was, a first year college student looking to potentially join the police force after graduation, riding on a motorbike she'd borrowed off her sister, heading towards her friend's mansion to be trained as a fighter by one of the most notorious gangsters in Tokyo, who her sister had put behind bars in the first place, all so they could intimidate the son of a politician who was trying to do... something. Through all of this she still wasn't sure what Sugimura was planning but after her run in with his goons the brains of the Phantom Thieves wasn't waiting to find out.

Really, they should have looked into changing his heart as soon as they'd met him, but they had their hands full dealing with the perpetually painful Palace that was Okumura's Space Station, and after _that_ they had bigger problems to deal with. Haru eventually cut ties with him on her own and that was that, or so everyone had hoped. Now he was back and they were going to have to take care of him in a way that didn't involve the Metaverse, one that Makoto knew that they really shouldn't do but at the same time _really wanted to_, which was why she was weaving through traffic with her workout bag strapped to the seat.

"Makoto! You made it!" Haru cheered as Makoto took off her helmet in the grand hall, rushing in to tightly wrap her arms around the biker girl a bit too tight. Haru had always been physically strong enough to throw an axe around but Makoto had never had to actually struggle to escape her grasp. Whatever training with Majima entailed, upper body strength was clearly part of his curriculum. "Majima's not here yet so we were going to get warmed up in the dojo. Saejima did drop off a package from him though, so it was nice to see him." She said as though she was talking about a casual friend instead of a Yakuza Captain as she lead Makoto into the old Ballet studio, one wall taken up by a massive mirror with a handrail across it, although most of the wooden floor was being covered with gym mats by a certain blond delinquent already dressed in his usual workout attire of a red tank top and striped jogging pants.

"Hey," Ryuji called out with a confident grin as he laid another mat down, kicking it into place when it wouldn't naturally fit with the others, "Ready for this?" He asked, not even blinking at the fact she was still in her black and white biker leathers. Pretty much everyone she knew except Sae and her fellow Phantom Thieves at least raised an eyebrow at the normally diligent student showing up like she was.

"As I'll ever be," Makoto sighed "Is there a spot to get changed here?"

"Sure," he nodded "There's a bathroom a couple doors down on the...right? but keep the jacket on over top, you'll probably need it... unless you're immune to getting whacked in the arm."

"Does that happen a lot?"

"Not really, unless you're trying out the nunchucks," Ryuji conceded "Then it does. Still cool though."

"You almost got it last time" Haru piped in for moral support.

"Eh, I'm just gonna stick with the bat. It's much easier when you don't have to think about momentum on something you're not really controlling. I'm struggling in physics class anyway 'cept for the solo project." he shrugged as Makoto headed for the first available changing space, leaving Haru and Ryuji to continue on their own.

"Ooo, what did you choose for your project?"

"Crushing cans by droppin' a sledgehammer head down a tube."

"Really... how is that a physics project?"

"It's about gravity and structural integrity. It counts."

* * *

Majima looked slightly worse for wear on arrival, mumbling something about how the construction site was getting to him, but seeing his students all ready and waiting for him put a smile back on his face, the three of them doing their last minute warm-up exercises, Ryuji sticking to push-ups, Haru resting on her shoulders as she attempted to push her core strength by keeping her legs up high, while the newest member settled for just stretching out her arms in preparation for whatever the Yakuza had planned for her first lesson.

"Sakamoto-chan, Okumura-chan, my two finest students," the gangster began as the three Phantom Thieves kneeled down in front of him like this was a formal dojo "I've been training you for a while now so I have a good sense of where you're at right now, however! You-" Majima declared as he walked in front of the class, pointing a finger at Makoto "What's your name?" he asked in a much quieter voice.

"Makoto Niijima." She nodded.

"Niijima... wait. As in Prosecutor Niijima?" Majima gulped, he probably should have seen some resemblance earlier, back in the karaoke lounge when he was getting the full red-eyed glare.

"Yes..." Makoto sighed, it was only a matter of time before this game out.

"Does she know you're here?" He asked.

"No."

"Okay! Great!" Majima said, clapping his hands together and going back to where he started before the brief panic "Niijima-chan! I don't know dick about your own abilities so I'm forced to rely on second hand information. So, to my existing students: who'd win in a fight out of all of ya?" He asked to blank expressions.

"Majima-sensei, are we using weapons?" Haru asked after an awkward silence, raising her hand.

"You can use whatever you can get hold of in this room. Other than my stuff." Goro qualified as his two students took that information, thought about it for a moment, and then both pointed at Makoto.

"Makoto would win." Haru nodded.

"Yeah, no doubt." Ryuji agreed.

"What? Has my training done nothing for you two?" Majima lamented, his shoulders sagging "Geez, I'd thought you'd have at least some self-confidence after everything."

"Dude, it's not a knock on your training or all the badasses we've met... but she'd whoop our asses." Ryuji explained

"I think you're overestimating my abilities." Makoto said as a blush crept onto her face.

"I don't know, you did knock out that cognitive-" Haru began, thinking back to their desperate gamble last year.

"_Really_ overestimating me." Makoto insisted, glaring at the fluffy heiress to limited effect, Haru just smiled sweetly at her.

"Well that and she's actually done martial arts before now." Ryuji thankfully explained.

"Oh, gotcha!" Majima sighed with relief. It wasn't as though his students were being overly pessimistic despite the smiles, they just figured that someone who had more experience would be the better fighter. That made more sense "So, Niijima-chan, outside of being a Phantom Thief, what's your repertoire, experience and your weapon of choice?" He asked, clasping his hands together as he posed the question "I know Okumura has her axe and Sakamoto uses anything big and blunt he can get his hands on," he continued as Ryuji fought the instinct to call 'Phrasing' "So not a lot is gonna surprise me."

"Well I do have six years Aikido experience," Makoto began as Majima nodded along "I've done some kickboxing but not regularly, and I guess my weapon of choice would be brass knuckles?"

"Ah, speaking about that:" Haru jumped in "You wanted to know where to get a good set? Well in Osaka there's this place called the Tiger & Dragon. We could purchase one from there although they'd probably want a hand size to get a good fit." She suggested.

"Okumura-chan. We're in the middle of something here," Majima reminded the brunette, letting her off with an awkward apology before continuing "So. From what I've gathered, you like to stick to unarmed combat but there's things you need to pack more of a punch for, but you've got the technique to take down bigger foes so that's great, means it'll be easier to bring you up to speed with how the other two were doing. Right?"

"Right." Makoto nodded as Majima strolled back and forth, pondering something.

"So if for example..." he began calmly, looking up at the ceiling with a hand in his pocket "...You were suddenly..._**JUMPED BY A GUY WITH A KNIFE!**_" The one-eyed Yakuza suddenly screeched, a flash of something shiny and grey suddenly revealed in one hand as the older man lunged at the Phantom Thief. Most people being attacked by a maimed madman would have frozen in fear, but not Makoto. In a swift motion she grabbed Majima by the wrist, trying to keep as far away from the knife as possible as she twisted both herself and Goro down to the mat, rising up to wrench on the now trapped arm of the Yakuza as though she was going to rip his hand off only to find that the snakeskin wearing gangster had stopped resisting. In fact, he hadn't resisted to being thrown over onto his back at all "Good reaction speed, and great form from kneeling down too. Impressive." He nodded as Makoto slowly backed away from the fallen Majima, releasing her grip as her heart still pounded.

"Does... does that happen a lot?" Makoto asked Ryuji and Haru, completely unperturbed over what just happened.

"Yeah, real pain in the ass though," Ryuji sighed, shaking his head as Haru picked up the discarded knife "It ain't even a real dagger, it's just rubber he coated with this weird paint." He added as the heiress threw it across the room, Makoto breathlessly watching it bounce off the wall with a seriously non-metallic 'Boing' while Haru simply shrugged it off.

"Aww c'mon Sakamoto-chan!" Majima cooed as he sat back up "It's practically part of the initiation at this point."

"Since when?" Ryuji asked incredulously.

"Since now! If we're expanding the Majima Dojo, we gotta start thinking about making these things more official. Like we know what the hell we're doing," Majima explained as Makoto continued to just stare at him "Sorry to throw you in the deep end like that Niijima-chan but an attack can come from anywhere and one of the first things you need to learn is not to freeze up in the face of danger. Looks like we can skip that step for you and go straight to the fun parts."

"And if you're really mad about it, kick him in the dick when his back's turned!" Ryuji enthusiastically added.

"Wha- Really?" Makoto spluttered.

"Not in the dick, that's uncalled for, but yeah," Majima nodded as he jumped to his feet "This is a lot more free form than a lot of training so if you think you can get away with it take your shot. Just keep in mind I expect you to defend yourself if I try and jump ya, and I'll do the same if you try anything. I still got the _real_ knife," The Yakuza threatened with a shark like grin "Now that's out of the way, time to hit the bags! Literally. Let's see what your punches are like Niijima-chan."

* * *

It had been a long time since Makoto had seen either Ryuji or Haru fight, and the first time against anything in the real world even if it was just inanimate objects, but from the glimpses she got while the biker/college student worked over her heavy bag with a barrage of kicks and punches, they'd come a long way since last Christmas. Ryuji had gravitated to using a baseball bat over anything else and while the technique was unorthodox, the way the blond focussed on his swings and moved his body was so much better than the more clumsy swings with a hammer or a lead pipe that he'd pummelled shadows with. Haru had stuck with her trusty axe but now didn't look as though she'd tire out after a few swings as she hacked away at the wooden dummy, the blunted but heavy axe knocking it back and forth when Majima called for some student vs student drills with rubber (but still fairly heavy) training weapons, critiquing the Heiress' footwork as she tried to slam it into her boyfriend's ribs, demonstrating how important the protective clothing was with how viciously Haru went for it "Don't over-commit on those big blows Okumura-chan, that's what cost ya in Osaka. You've got the reach and the heavier weapon, don't throw those advantages away when you can knock him around with smaller swings! Sakamoto-chan, you need to get in close faster, I don't care if she's your girlfriend you can't be afraid of getting in the face of a woman with an axe!" the one-eyed Yakuza called from the sidelines before turning to Makoto "Do you want the rubber knuckles or are you fine with bare fists?" He asked, rifling through his stash of various weapons.

* * *

"Alright, that's enough," Majima called, clapping his hands as Makoto peeled herself off the gym mats, there was a reason why people didn't normally exercise in heavy motorcycle jackets in Summer, even Ryuji was drowning in his own sweat "Some great stuff today, if your hacker friend can figure out what we're likely to be up against with the goon squad we can look at setting a date for getting a rich asshole out of everyone's hair. And when that happens, I'll show you what's in the cardboard box but until then: No touchy." he said, handing out bottles of water from an ice box, he was nothing if not prepared.

"Gotcha." Ryuji panted as he propped himself up against the wall, ripping the top off the bottle and just letting the cold water wash over his face before he took a drink of anything.

"How well do you think we'll do?" Haru asked as she downed her water ration in one gulp while Majima tidied away the weapons.

"Like I said, depends how many goons he's got on payroll, how well they're trained and what equip they've got. If it was just him on his own, you would have been able to take him before you started training. Unless he's like a boxing prodigy or something." the Tojo Clan captain shrugged.

"He wasn't." Haru breathed, she'd had to listen to Sugimura talk long enough to know that his approach to sport precluded him from any chance of getting hit in the face. If he had any martial arts ability at all it would be a shock.

"Well then, good. Think about when's a good time for the next lesson and we'll have you in prime condition to take on a whole army!" Majima cheered with a satisfied grin "Especially you Niijima-chan. Any grown man would crumple down to the ground with how hard you elbowed Sakamoto-chan in the gut, and anyone other than him wouldn't pop straight back up!"

"It was... an experience." Makoto wheezed, trying to fight the urge to smile as she staggered back to her feet.

"Great! Also... Niijima-chan..." he began, ducking in low to bring himself down to her height "What's your relation to Prosecutor Niijima?" He asked in a whisper "If you don't want to say what it is exactly that's fine just, I need to know something."

"What?" Makoto asked, exhaustion digging away at her ability to understand what the Yakuza was getting at.

"Did she... over the past year and a bit since she threw me in the slammer, no hard feelings for that I promise, did she... mention me at all?" Majima asked with a seriously concerned expression.

"...No?" Sae rarely mentioned work at all when she was a prosecutor, and she certainly didn't mention who was in individual cases. It was only through the news that she found out that she had put the Tojo Clan brass behind bars.

"No grumbles, no threats about how she was gonna kill me. No dartboard or punching bag with my face on it or anything?" He continued.

"Definitely not." That question Makoto could answer for certain. Sae's former boss' face was on the punching bag.

"Phew, that's one less woman I need to worry about," Majima sighed before straightening up and speaking louder "Okay Niijima-chan, that was some great work today, hope to see you again soon!"

* * *

_**A/N: We are definitely getting close to ending this part of the crossover. It has been fun, but I need this and Dragon of Inaba to be over before I can start thinking about moving on to Phase 2 and so on. I've set myself the deadline to finish this in two chapters or less. So hopefully it will be the longest running fic I've ever managed to actually complete, thanks for all the support people.**_


	22. Chapter 22 - Prep Work

Investigative work was Futaba's bread and butter, even with school work demanding ever more attention and exams looming on the far horizon while she was in front of her screen, fans whirring all around her as ancient (by PC tech standards) monoliths brought forward wisdom of the ages, she could be nearly omniscient with enough time to work her magic. Bright screens were reflected in the hacker's glasses in the gloom as she scowled at what to outsiders would have just seemed like meaningless numbers in green and the blank countdown in red.

"Is it broken?" Came the deep voice from the darkness behind her, a giant drenched in shadow, a giant who happened to be the most incompetent tech guy Futaba had ever known. Why did she have to deal with the big guy? He took up most of the room even when crouched down, and there was no way in hell she was letting him sit on her bed. If Sojiro found out he was here and in her room, he'd be chasing the giant out with a shotgun.

"It's not as simple as that." She growled out, not turning around from the screen as her scowl deepened. That was the other problem, out of all of the sane and sensible members of the Tojo Clan, he was by far the worst with tech and had tried to use pop culture to fill out the blanks. Which meant he had no idea how hacking actually worked and that no: she couldn't just search 'how many goons does dickbag S have?' and sign off for an early lunch.

"We got his address from the limo, don't we? That's how you found out this Sugimura guy was behind this." Saejima argued, still not seeing why this was taking so long.

"I got the address of whatever shell business in Kamurocho his dad put him in charge of," Futaba clarified "He's smart enough to change his phone... or he's enough of a prick that he doesn't bother to keep his number when he gets a new model every month... so I can't get him through Haru's too, so that's out."

"You worked quick on the cameras at the college." The giant Yakuza pointed out.

"That's 'cause we had it compromised on the first day they were there." It had taken a lot of convincing to get Makoto to plant an access point for her on campus security, and it was done under the pretence that the orange haired hacker just wanted a way to observe campus life while she worked up the nerve to start regularly attending school.

"So what, you need someone to go there and bug the place as well?" Saejima suggested.

That wasn't a bad idea, fake a reason to get in, slap it on the nearest laptop and pray Sugimura was the type of person who hooked his coffee machine on to unsecured Wi-Fi so he could order a custom saffron and vanilla bean latte or whatever rich people with no taste drank from the comfort of his limo to be ready when he stepped in the office. Still, there was a slight problem "Wouldn't they be worried about something like one of Majima's guys snooping around?" Futaba asked "I mean, after you sent two of them packing."

"Crap, yeah..." Taiga conceded as he leaned against the door, ignoring the crinkle of the posters he was damaging in the process "So we need to get into whatever system he's working with before we find out who he's working with." he concluded.

"Yeah, and I can't get to that from just the car tax and company info straight away." Futaba concluded while Saejima was lost in thought.

"It's a bit of a long shot, but... I think I got an idea."

* * *

Ryuji absent-mindedly strolled down the busy street, a heavy gym bag slung over his shoulder and phone in hand as he talked as if no-one was listening "Dude, you've gotta be here with us when it goes down," he insisted "It's not gonna be the same if it's not a full Phan- full group deal Ren-Ren!"

"_**Ryuji, I'll be there if I can, but I told you the camping trip's coming up soon and I can't just ditch it."**_ Came the reply from their leader in Inaba, barely audible over what sounded like... convenience store radio jingles?

"I know, I know..." Ryuji sighed "Wait, is it the same date as Yusuke's trip? 'Cause that's next weekend... not that any of us know where he's going."

"_**Wait. What? Didn't he tell you where he's going?"**_ Ren asked. Surely the artist mentioned at some point where he was going and they all collectively forgot because who cared about local trips.

"He said he didn't know: only that its a 'expedition into nature to find virtuous subjects' and other crap. Hey, what if he shows at the same campsite?"

"_**It's hours away on the train, his school isn't gonna cart a bunch of people out to Inaba just for the mountains. There's mountains everywhere in this country."**_

"I dunno man, remember Hawaii last year?" Ryuji pointed out "Dude was supposed to be in LA and then he turns up behind us."

"_**That was a flight thing, wasn't it?"**_

"Still happened."

"_**Fair point,"**_ Ren agreed _**"So how's the training going? Any more assault courses?"**_

"Nah, we're sticking to prepping for the big day so its warm ups, cardio shit and then just practice practice practice. Its like studying for exams... if it was something I'm good at and wanted to do."

"_**So nothing like studying for exams."**_

It was a cheap joke but Ryuji still laughed all the same "Haha yeah, anyway: you know that guy we bought all the airsoft stuff from?"

Part of Ren was relieved that the blond didn't immediately say 'the guy we got guns from' _**"...Yeah?"**_

"Is it cool if I buy more stuff off him using your name? We're paying cash its just he doesn't give crap to people he doesn't know."

"_**What're you trying to do?" **_Ren asked with his eyebrows raised all the way in the countryside.

"Practising disarming techniques."

"_**...You're not actually gonna fight people with real guns. Right?"**_

"Sure as hell hope not, but the replica stuff makes it easier to get why things like that work if it looks and feels legit," the blond explained as he walked up a set of stairs to the nearest metro station "Majima's picking 'em up."

"_**Oh that's bad."**_ Ren responded, realisation creeping in to his voice.

"Huh?"

It took all of Iwai's nerve to remain calm as he retrieved the requested merchandise from the back of his store, trying not risk looking behind him at the one eyed man standing at the counter. Of all the people in all the world who could have shown up: The Mad Dog of Shimano was at his store. "Everything alright back there?" Asked one of the most infamous figures in the underworld.

"Yes sir, everything's fine," Iwai responded promptly, trying not to let his voice crack as he picked out the last things on the madman's list. He didn't know what the Tojo clan captain wanted with this stuff to the point that he was willing to show up in person to buy it but he didn't want to know "There you go, that's everything you asked for sir."

"Thanks," Majima smiled as he dug out his wallet. What the heck was Ryuji going on about earlier about needing to use a friend's account to buy stuff from this store? The guy running it had been nothing but exceptionally polite. Maybe he just didn't like kids, that was probably it, two kids buying a load of fake guns probably looked a lot different to a mature adult such as himself buying them. Still, there was something in the back of the one-eyed man's mind "Hey, this is gonna sound weird, but have we met before?"

"No sir, definitely the first time meeting you, Majima-san." Iwai replied, inwardly cursing.

"How'd you know my name?" Majima asked as his eye narrowed slightly, something was definitely up here.

"It's on your bank card." The store owner ad-libbed.

"Huh?" Majima let out as he looked down, sure enough that was the name on the card. "Oh, right. Must've been my imagination, thanks anyway." He brushed off, taking the bags of fake weapons with him as Iwai breathed the biggest sigh of relief in his life.

* * *

Sugimura was fuming as he paced back and forth across the width of his small office that looked out on the Millennium Tower, two suited men with bandages and gauze across their faces sat down opposite a basic desk trying to look as small as possible for people who were close to six feet tall. "Why am I only finding out about this now?" Sugimura asked pointedly as he scooped up a whiskey glass on the edge of the desk.

"Well boss, you told us to not report back until we found something..." one of the goons began to explain.

"Getting your faces mushed into the pavement counts as something!" he snapped, knocking back a deep drink of the potent liquor and shivering as the feeling of drinking fire washed over him, Dutch courage and the knowledge of who was paying these people driving him forward "In broad daylight too... how did the police not investigate these things..." in his mind, that's what the police were for: removing what inconvenienced him personally.

"He just came out of nowhere!" the other suited goon protested "What are we supposed to do against someone that size when he sneaks up behind you?"

"Well then... it seems we need to go on a recruitment drive." Sugimura pondered, swirling the remains of his glass of whiskey as an idea formed in his head and a grin grew on his face. This attacker couldn't be the biggest thug in Tokyo, surely, and if the police weren't going to be of use... or maybe they could be.

* * *

"I need access to your surveillance system."

The Florist was used to all sorts of people coming up to him directly for information, down in the depths below the city where every municipal and several private cameras were all linked together, and the Tojo Clan was nothing unusual, but the sight of a skinny orange haired teenager coming in and pretty much demanding full access to his system was a new one even for him. "...Is she serious?" He asked Saejima, spinning in his seat as all the camera screens whirred behind him "Taiga, what's going on? Who's this lost child ya dragged in here?"

"I know this is going to sound weird, but-" Saejima began, putting a hand on Futaba's shoulder to hold her back. The journey to Purgatory had been an awkward one and the hacker just wanted this over and done with quickly, to her that just meant jumping straight to the point and no explanations so she can be safe with Sojiro before sundown.

"I'm used to weird, so out with it already." The information broker growled.

"We're after a man named Sugimura, and want to have a gauge of his strength, how many people he has working for him as muscle." The big man explained.

"And why d'ya need direct access for that?" The Florist asked, spinning back in his chair to his screens "That's information I could give you with enough time." He pointed out before taking a deep drag of his cigar.

"That's the problem, it'd take too long and I need to know now." Futaba insisted.

"Look kid, I'm not about to let someone I know nothing about, mess in my system and leave it open for who knows what." The Florist growled out.

"What sort of amateur do you take me for?" The orange haired-hacker snapped back, leaving Saejima to regret bringing her here.

"A kid who watched too many movies that had people tapping randomly on keyboards." The Florist shrugged, leaving the big man to restrain the flailing teenager like she was Scrappy Doo.

"You son of a-" She began as Saejima lifted her off the ground as gently as possible before something other than the fat man in the chair caught her eye "There!"

"What?" The Florist grunted as he span back to face the two.

"Top row, seventh screen from the right!" Futaba desperately pointed towards the small point where a limousine could just be made out with a young-ish man in a fancy suit stepping out of it.

"Damn, that's the limo," Saejima grunted "Florist, that guy stepping out of the limousine's the one we need tracked. Whatever the cost, we'll cover you for it." he called out.

"Alright, you're on," the information broker nodded, spinning back around and bringing the screen up into focus "So what's the deal with this guy?" He asked as Sugimura and two bandaged bodyguards walked into the building "He a gang leader, rival clan, that sort of thing?"

"Plain ol' rich ass, why?"

"If he's just a rich kid. Why's he stepping into jail?" The Florist asked

"That's a jail?" Futaba asked incredulously, there was practically no difference between it and many of the other office buildings with a lobby that littered Tokyo from what she could see from the outside. Not even a plaque with a slogan saying 'make my day, punk' on it.

"Camera 378, across the road from Kamurocho's newest drunk tank. Specially built 'cause of all the fist fights that kept happening on the streets, only now that Kiryu's not around any more it doesn't get used that often. Cops get a call about a fight, they hang back a bit then scoop up whoever's still standing and chuck em in till they figure out what to do with them."

"So what's a rich kid with paid bodyguards doing in a place like that?" Saejima asked as he walked up to the Florist's chair, watching over his shoulder.

"That's what you're paying me to find out." The Florist smirked as he stubbed out the remains of his cigar as he tapped something on the side of his chair, the main focus of the big screen switching from a view of the street looking in to one from inside the jail looking out into the road, giving a good view of the front desk, with Sugimura impatiently tapping his feet as uniformed officers rushed around him "Geez... have some respect for yourselves when you're in uniform..." he sighed as one of them actually brought him an office chair instead of telling him to sit down at the bench.

"So what's he doing?" Futaba asked, managing to get in between the two older men as they all looked on the screens.

"Not sure, the cameras they installed don't have mics or zoom in. We just gotta wait and see." The Florist explained as the people on screen exchanged paperwork, and two officers wandered off with a set of keys in hand.

It took a while of just watching people milling around before the final piece of the puzzle fell in to place. A massive man so gigantic that he had to duck through the doors that dwarfed Sugimura's normal hired muscle, dressed in a tank top and jeans that somehow managed to be baggy on his immense frame was lead out by the two officers that had left earlier, wrists barely held together with handcuffs that were swiftly removed as the newcomer left with Sugimura and his entourage.

* * *

Majima inspected his troops in the Majima Dojo intensely as they kneeled down (Ryuji sat down but he said his leg was acting up so he got away with the lack of discipline), judging their worthiness himself before he made his proposition "Okay, so if you were hypothetically getting tattoos on your back, what would they be?"

"Dragon." Makoto answered quickly.

"Dragon." Ryuji nodded as well.

"Umm..."

"Guys, come on, I'm being serious here," the one-eyed gangster sighed "You can't all be dragons. It doesn't work like that." That was the downside to working with kids, they had no appreciation of the meaning behind the tattoos.

"Why the hell not? Dragon's the best one, so why'd I get anything else?" Ryuji argued.

"It's not the best one!" Majima snapped with a growl.

"It's not?" Haru asked earnestly.

"No!" the Tojo clan captain yelled, before taking a deep breath. If he was snapping at Haru he was getting way too worked up over this "Look, you don't go getting any design of back ink because its 'cool' or anything. It has to mean something. Like... an expression of yourself. It takes on its own meaning, as a goal you set yourself, as a past you want to remember, that sorta thing."

"So I can't be a Dragon?" Ryuji asked again, this time with a shit eating grin.

"Listen here you little shit," Majima growled, pointing an accusatory finger at his student before the peppy sound of 80s music saved Ryuji's day "Moshi moshi." The one-eyed man answered.

"_**Its me." **_Saejima's deep voice came through loud and clear.

"Oh hey bro," Majima sighed "Find anything?"

"_**Nothing you're gonna like. Florist's gonna send you what he found, don't know if it'll play on your phone. Doesn't on mine."**_ The big man explained.

"Eh?" Majima let out before the line went dead, replaced by the buzz of a received email "Gah, gotta change that alert," He grumbled as the Phantom Thieves crowded around the phone "Hey, hey! A man's phone is private property! I'll show ya when I got it working!"

"Holy shit!" Ryuji called out, not getting the memo as the video started to flare into life while the Yakuza attempted to shoo them away.

"Huh?" Majima let out, before realising just what Ryuji had seen "Wait, what the hell?"

"That's that giant purse snatcher! What the eff is he doing with him?"

"Is he... paying his bail?" Makoto asked, her eyes going wide as he saw the size of the man in question.

"Gone and fetched Mr Shakedown himself... the motherfu- ahem!" Majima interrupted himself "So, we know what we're up against now." he announced to the class

"How long is it going to take before we can fight anyone _that_ size?" Haru asked in hushed tones.

"Together?" Majima pondered, looking at the screen.

"Dude, there's no way we can-" Ryuji began.

"We could do it tomorrow if you're free after school." The one eyed man suggested, earning slack jaws and blank stares.

"For real?" the blond managed to cough out.

"What? From what you told me you almost had the big lug when you met him before." Majima argued

"Yeah, that was before he put a bootprint on my lungs!"

"And it was before I started training ya. You've come a ways since then Sakamoto-chan~" Majima cooed as he clapped his hands "After everything I've taught you and Okumura-chan, and Niijima-chan but not as much since we haven't been doing this so long, a guy like that should be cake if you can get it three on one. He won't stand a chance."

"Are you sure?" Makoto asked pensively.

"Positive." The one eyed man nodded as his grin grew maniacally wide.

**12 DAYS UNTIL SHOWDOWN**

* * *

**Bit of a scattershot chapter after a month of absence (I blame returning to work) but nearly everything is gearing up for the finale. The first non-oneshot fic I would have finished in over a decade. Wooo!**


End file.
